Oral Answers to Questions

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

The Secretary of State was asked—

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Bob Neill: What steps he is taking to promote civil society in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Hilary Benn: We have given significant support to civil society in the DRC, both before and during the elections, to enable organisations to undertake civic education and to act as observers, and we are also supporting the media to help improve accountability. More than 30 per cent. of our support goes mostly to international non-governmental organisations to deliver programmes. That support will include £27 million over three years to two large NGOs to provide free basic health care in 20 health areas.

Bob Neill: Does the Secretary of State agree with the continuing concerns highlighted on Radio 4's "Today" programme this morning about arbitrary arrest and violence by President Kabila's regime towards political opponents? There are also problems of rampant corruption, especially in the extractive industries, and a continuing history of a lack of development in the basic infrastructure. Will the Government put renewed pressure on President Kabila to end those autocratic practices, as without a real and meaningful development of civil society all our increased aid budget will be frittered away? Is not a significant civil society a prerequisite for meaningful and long-term economic development?

Hilary Benn: I agree completely with the hon. Gentleman. The DRC is a country where virtually everything is broken. That is the truth, as I saw for myself on my recent visit, and as did the hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Mitchell), the Opposition spokesman on international development, who has also been there recently. I raised precisely that point in my meeting with President Kabila, because the people of the Congo want to see that the Government will reach out and embrace the Opposition there and allow civil society the time and space to acquire a voice. In that way, for the first time in their lives, people will be able to experience good governance. Unless good governance comes to the Congo, none of the problems to which the hon. Gentleman referred will be dealt with, but establishing it will take time.

Jeremy Corbyn: I strongly commend the Secretary of State for the huge personal effort that he has made, and the amount of work that he has done, in supporting the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in getting the election process under way. Will he do his best to ensure that the Government of the DRC use the country's enormous mineral wealth, and any aid that is being donated, to develop primary education? I visited the DRC last year as an election observer, and it seemed to me that the illiteracy rate was rising not falling. Unless we address that, all the other development goals will be impossible to achieve.

Hilary Benn: I pay tribute to my hon. Friend and to hon. Members on both sides of the House for the interest that they have taken in the Congo. Indeed, a number of hon. Members acted as observers in the elections to which the UK was proud to be the largest contributor. That was an extraordinary moment in the country's history.
	My hon. Friend is right to say that the DRC does not lack natural wealth. The truth is that it has been raped and pillaged—first by its colonial masters, and then by some of the neighbouring countries. That treatment is now being continued by some Congolese, but good governance is the solution, as that will ensure that the natural resources are used in the interests of the people and not of the private pocket.
	We are working with the World Bank on a programme to help abolish school fees in part of the country. For the very poorest families, they act as an obstacle to getting children into the classroom, which is where they belong. Education, good governance and an open form of politics are three essential elements that must be secured if the country is to make progress.

Nicholas Winterton: I commend the Secretary of State for what he is doing in Africa and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but he will be aware that the Government of that country and President Kabila have a unique relationship with President Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Is the right hon. Gentleman able to exert pressure on Zimbabwe, through President Kabila, to promote civil society in that country? I hope that he feels that we should use every avenue open to us to try to bring a change in Zimbabwe, as well as in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Hilary Benn: May I simply say that the development of civil society is vital for all countries and communities, including Zimbabwe? As I have said to the hon. Gentleman before, if the countries neighbouring Zimbabwe spoke up more loudly and truthfully about what is going on there we would see faster progress towards enabling the people of Zimbabwe—and of the DRC—to express their views, openly and without fear, about what they want to happen to the future of their country.

Chris Mullin: Does my right hon. Friend believe that the Congo's ruling elite has understood that the purpose of government is to benefit the welfare of the people, and that it is not an exercise in looting? What progress has been made towards the integration of the army? As he knows, it does not defend the people but poses a threat to their welfare.

Hilary Benn: The cultural and political change—if I may describe it in that way—to which my hon. Friend refers in the Congo can be described only as work in progress, because it has a long way to go. Army integration is an example of that. There has been some progress, but one of the difficulties is that the large amount of money that comes out of the Exchequer every month to pay for the armed forces does not bear a direct relationship to the number of soldiers who need paying. One of the points that I made to President Kabila both on my recent visit and previously is that if the Government of the DRC want the international community to give more support to army integration—the UK is doing something to provide tents and clean water to those who are part of the integrated brigade—they have to demonstrate that the money that the donors are putting in is being used for the purpose for which it is intended. Army integration is crucial to the future of the country. The country has to stop having separate armed forces representing separate political groups. There is one elected President. The army must come behind that President and act on behalf of the country as a whole.

Andrew Mitchell: In spite of the Congo's awful history and the accurate comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), does the Secretary of State agree that the recent elections, the performance of the United Nations forces, whose mandate must be renewed, and the support of the British taxpayer all give some grounds for optimism in a country whose stability and prosperity is crucial to that of all of Africa? Since it is clear that building space for the Opposition in Parliament there is of vital importance, will he say a little more about his Department's future plans for supporting the promotion of that?

Hilary Benn: I agree with the hon. Gentleman. Despite all the difficulties that we have just been discussing, the transitional Government represented real progress and the elections—the first for 43 years— were extraordinary. I join him in paying tribute to the contribution of the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I agree with him that MONUC has got to stay there for quite some time, because the country needs the security and the reassurance that it provides. I specifically raised with President Kabila the issue of space for the Opposition. I met members of the Opposition both in the National Assembly and separately. It was hoped recently that they would meet President Kabila. I understand that that meeting has not taken place, although they met one of his advisers. Some of the Opposition have now gone back into Parliament, having boycotted it for a while. This issue is the real test. In the end, President Kabila is the President of the whole country and he has a great responsibility, as well as an opportunity, to reach out to all those who won representation in the elections and to show that the Congo will be a country in which people can say what they think and participate in that very fragile democracy, which, if they commit to it, will allow the country to move forward. I can assure the hon. Gentleman and the House that we are going to stick with that process every step of the way.

Judy Mallaber: I also applaud the work of the Secretary of State and the progress that has been made in the DRC. Will he tell us a bit more about what President Kabila said, on the Secretary of State's recent visit, about providing space for the Opposition? We have met Opposition politicians here who have been concerned about that. What support can we continue to give via EUSEC—the EU security sector reform mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo—in particular in relation to the crucial issue of the security forces and their integration?

Hilary Benn: President Kabila expressed to me his commitment to the democratic process. In the end, the international community should judge the President and the country by what it does, as well as by what it says. Only time will provide the answer. On EUSEC, we have provided support in the form of the secondment of staff and we have provided funding, as I indicated in answer to an earlier question. For the reasons that I set out, it is important that the process of army integration continues.

Water Supplies

Jim Sheridan: What steps his Department is taking to promote the availability of clean drinking water in developing countries.

Shailesh Vara: What steps his Department is taking to promote clean water and sanitation in the developing world; and if he will make a statement.

Hilary Benn: We will double our expenditure on water and sanitation in Africa, where the millennium development goal targets are most off-track, to £95 million a year by 2007-08, and then double it again to £200 million a year by 2010-11. Last November, I published a global call to action on water and sanitation. We need both developing country Governments and donors to do more, we need to invest more and to ensure that money is spent effectively, and we need to put the best structures in place to make all of that happen.

Jim Sheridan: Like me, my right hon. Friend will have visited developing countries such as Ghana and Nigeria and seen at first hand the lack of proper drinking water and the poor sanitation. What tangible efforts could be made in terms of the World Bank to assist us in our millennium goals and in solving the problem of poor sanitation in developing countries?

Hilary Benn: It is a question of funding—there needs to be more funding for water and sanitation from the international community, donors, multilateral institutions and the Governments of developing countries themselves—and giving local authorities in the growing towns and cities of the developing world the resources that they need to provide water and sanitation as their populations increase. It is also about changing cultural attitudes and habits, which is why our support for the community-led total sanitation initiative is a really good thing. The initiative has shown its capacity to change attitudes throughout the world and to get people to realise that if they do not deal with sanitation, they undermine the health of their community. We need more of that.

Shailesh Vara: Given that more than 1 billion people throughout the world lack access to clean water, what is the Secretary of State doing to ensure that that important issue is on the agenda of the G8 meeting in June?

Hilary Benn: By our own actions we have increased investment, which I have described to the House. The global call that I issued in November was all about trying to raise the profile of the issue. I am pleased to report to the House that at the recent spring meetings of the World Bank, we reached an agreement that there should in future be one annual report on how the world is doing and one annual meeting at which we can gather to determine what needs to be done next and to divide up the work. The UN has indicated that it is prepared to nominate one lead UN body in- country to be the vehicle through which support for water and sanitation will be provided, which represents real progress. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we will continue to press the matter, including through the G8.

Ann Cryer: To return to my right hon. Friend's comments about changing habits, is he aware that the local authority in Nairobi had well-advanced plans some months ago to pipe water to one of the city's largest slums, but that the plans had to be withdrawn owing to landlords' threats of violence because they were making too much money out of selling water in that slum?

Hilary Benn: The story that my hon. Friend tells draws our attention to the difficulties that countries face as they try to make progress. In the case that she cites, the landlords have a vested interest in the existing system because, as the House knows, the highest prices for water are paid by the people who buy it in plastic bags and buckets from water sellers. In Ghana, such people pay five to six times as much for water as those who get it through the leaky, creaky water supply system. That illustrates that one problem that local authorities face is how they deal with informal settlements. There is a question whether there will be recognition of the fact that millions of people live in an area and whether clean water will be provided, and that shows what a big task local authorities face. That is partly about governance and partly about resources.

William Cash: Will the Secretary of State note that I have tabled an early-day motion, which has been signed by the chairmen of six all-party groups connected with Africa, that calls for support for the "End Water Poverty" campaign? Some 193 Members—soon the number will be more than 200—from all parties have signed the early-day motion, which, as it happens, is supported by Conservative Front Benchers, to call for the problems to which the Secretary of State has just referred to be remedied. Is he aware that we are going to Downing street on Saturday to present a petition about the matter? WaterAid and Tearfund, which have led the campaign, deserve every conceivable support. Does he agree that the £95 million a year that he is proposing might not be adequate and that we need to do more?

Hilary Benn: I agree with the hon. Gentleman's very last point, and that is why we will double the amount again when we reach the £95 million figure, because the problem is greatest in Africa. I am grateful to him for telling me about the petition that will be presented. I join him in paying tribute to the two organisations to which he referred, which we support and work with, because this is a great global cause—frankly, we need all the help that we can get. Above all, the people who do not have clean water and sanitation need all the interest and attention that we together can garner so that progress can be made to improve their lives.

Sally Keeble: What is my right hon. Friend doing to improve access to water and sanitation in the slums? Is his Department working with UN-Habitat to examine the upgrading of slums and the likely impact of that on improving access to these services?

Hilary Benn: I have met Anna Tibaijuka, who heads up UN-Habitat, to discuss the slum upgrading programme and the facility that she is advocating. In the end, the most important thing is to give resources to the people who have responsibility for providing clean water and sanitation in the urban areas of Africa and Asia. This country's history shows that local authorities, as they developed, were principally responsible for putting in place piped water and sewerage systems, which did more than anything else in 19th century Britain to prolong life expectancy. Developing countries are going through exactly the same process, and we need to ensure that they have the means, the political will—that must come from within—and resources at a local and city level, given that that is where the investment must be made.

Nadine Dorries: The Select Committee on International Development's recent report highlighted the fact that sanitation is a poorly performing target within the Department, and it recommended the establishment of a sanitation agency. I cannot support that request. Does the Secretary of State not think that it would be more appropriate for him, his Department and his civil servants to highlight sanitation as an issue, to focus on it and to try to improve the situation?

Hilary Benn: I think that that is what we are doing. In fairness to the Select Committee, it acknowledged that the UK played a leading role in securing a millennium development goal target on sanitation, which was agreed in 2002. Britain deserves credit for having pushed for that. Secondly, our support for the rural hygiene, sanitation and water supply project in Bangladesh has helped 7.7 million people in the first five years, and we are funding a UNICEF programme in India that aims to reach 213 million people. In addition, the community-led total sanitation initiative is a practical way of dealing with the problem. It is very blunt and direct; it involves going into villages and saying, "We've got to take a decision to stop open defecation in this village because that's the cause of a lot of ill-health," and it works, because it does not have a fixed plan. It works with the community and finds solutions. In some cases, the price of the plates that are needed for pit latrines has come down to as little as a dollar. These are the practical steps that need to be taken if more people are to have clean sanitation.

Lindsay Hoyle: What role does my right hon. Friend think that private water companies can play in ensuring clean water and sanitation through charitable work, and what will he do to ensure that our private companies do even more charitable work overseas?

Hilary Benn: I welcome the contribution of any organisation that supports charitable work to provide clean water and sanitation. On the public-private argument, I welcome what the Select Committee report had to say. In the end, we are not having an ideological debate about public or private; the issue that we should be interested in is the most effective way of getting clean water and sanitation to the largest number of people. I am interested in what works.

Andrew Mitchell: The Secretary of State must be acutely aware of the widespread concern, expressed by the Select Committee, numerous non-governmental organisations and many others, that clean water and, in particular, the unglamorous but vital issue of sanitation risk becoming the orphan millennium development goals. On current progress, we will not meet those targets for nearly 70 years. Is not all our work on prioritising health and education undermined if girls have to walk five miles each day to get water for their families, and if children risk death from poor sanitation?

Hilary Benn: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and that is why providing clean water is not just good for the health of children and communities, but very good for getting girls into school. That is why, as I saw for myself on a recent visit to Malawi, providing toilets as well as classrooms is absolutely fundamental in the education work that we support. That maximises the chances of girls coming to school, and, as they get older, staying in school, which they will not do if there are no toilets for them to use. The issue is how we integrate all the approaches to health, education, water and sanitation to ensure the progress that the hon. Gentleman and I both want.

Faith-Based Organisations

Mark Pritchard: What percentage of aid provided by his Department was distributed through faith-based organisations in 2006-07.

Gareth Thomas: In 2005-06 the Department for International Development provided more than £23 million to UK-based faith groups, including Christian Aid, the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development and Islamic Relief. That sum represents about 10 per cent. of funding to UK civil society. It does not include DFID funds that are passed to faith groups through multilateral donors, or through developing country Governments, so the total sum will be much higher.

Mark Pritchard: I thank the Minister for that response, and I congratulate him, the Secretary of State and all officials in his Department on rightly recognising the important work that faith-based organisations such as Tearfund, CAFOD, World Vision and Christian Aid do in delivering aid and development all over the world. Would the Minister like to put on record today a reaffirmation of the importance of faith-based groups delivering such aid?

Gareth Thomas: I am grateful for the opportunity that the hon. Gentleman has provided, because I share his view that faith-based groups do a huge amount of good in the direct provision of services in many developing countries. I had the opportunity to see a superb Christian Aid-funded project in South Africa that is doing a huge amount of good in the Germiston township just outside Johannesburg, helping that community to deal with the impact of HIV and AIDS. Faith-based groups do a lot more than that, too: they advocate efforts to tackle poverty, and they play a huge role in the campaigns that are inevitably mounted in the run-up to G8 conferences to encourage international leaders to do more. We welcome them.

Keith Vaz: Would the Minister join me in congratulating Hindu Aid and its chairman, Arjan Vekaria, on the excellent work that they do in building up relations between our country and India in particular? The Secretary of State will address Hindu Aid shortly. Surely, that is the best way of trying to get those networks working so that aid is properly spent.

Gareth Thomas: I join my right hon. Friend in paying tribute to Arjan Vekaria, the chair of Hindu Aid, and the many other members who support Hindu Aid's work. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State looks forward to the forthcoming conference with Hindu Aid—indeed, I do too. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) is right that the development work that we are doing in India is extremely important. Given the huge number of people in India who still live on less than a dollar a day, there is much more to do. Hindu Aid's work both in drawing attention to that and in campaigning for more resources and more progress on poverty in India is hugely important.

Mark Simmonds: My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) rightly highlighted the important role that UK faith-based organisations and their dedicated volunteers play in alleviating poverty across the developing world, particularly in conflict zones and with vulnerable groups. A recent report by the World Health Organisation identifies the fact that up to 70 per cent. of the health infrastructure in Africa is owned by faith-based organisations, yet it concludes that there is minimal co-operation between them and mainstream public health programmes. Perhaps the Minister will say what specific proposals DFID has introduced to enhance collaboration with and between faith-based organisations, particularly to ensure that the goal of universal access to HIV prevention and treatment is achieved by the target date of 2010.

Gareth Thomas: The hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to the need for considerably more effort across the international community by faith-based groups and international donors such as ourselves and other countries attending the forthcoming G8 summit to make progress towards the goal of universal access to HIV prevention, care and treatment. We work closely with a range of faith-based organisations in a number of developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. He rightly drew attention to the report that said that more effort is needed to bring those groups together and to link them to mainstream health care services. We are seeking to do more through our investment in health care in Malawi and Sierra Leone to link those faith-based organisations together. We have come a long way but, as he said, we have an awfully long way to go, too.

World Bank

Hugh Bayley: What representations he has made to the World Bank on the conduct of the bank's president; and if he will make a statement.

Hilary Benn: I discussed the issue with my fellow governors of the World Bank at the spring meetings on 15 April. We agreed that we have to ensure that the bank can effectively carry out its mandate and maintain its credibility and reputation, as well as the motivation of its staff, and that the current situation is of great concern. We endorsed the bank's actions in looking into this matter, and we asked it to complete its investigation, which is continuing.

Hugh Bayley: The bank's credibility in fighting corruption was severely undermined by the president's decision to increase his partner's salary. The corrupt leaders of many countries now say, "If it's okay for the bank, it's okay for me to channel public funds to my own family." The bank would start to repair its reputation if the president admitted that he had made a mistake and changed the bank's policies so that no bank employee in future will ever again reward a member of his family or a close friend. Will my right hon. Friend tell the president that if he showed a bit of humility and changed the bank's policy there would be fewer people arguing for a change in the bank's leadership?

Hilary Benn: The president of the World Bank said on 12 April:
	"I made a mistake, for which I am sorry...I take full responsibility for the details."
	A process is investigating what went on. We should let the bank board get on with its work. We will consider its report when it is published.

John Barrett: How can the World Bank demand an end to corruption in developing countries when many staff in the World Bank feel that there is corruption at the very top of their own organisation?

Hilary Benn: It is very important that all institutions maintain the highest standards. It is for that reason that, as governors, we expressed concern about what has gone on. It must be brought to an end, and to a satisfactory conclusion that maintains the credibility and the reputation of the bank.

PRIME MINISTER

The Prime Minister was asked—

Engagements

Simon Hughes: If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 9 May.

Tony Blair: Before listing my engagements, there are a number of things that I should say. First, I pay tribute to Lord Weatherill, the former Speaker of the House, who died at the weekend. As I said then, he was a real gentleman. He was an outstanding Speaker, someone of impartiality and decency, and he will be missed by Members in all parts of the House.
	I am sure the whole House will once again wish to join me in sending our profound condolences to the families and friends of Guardsman Simon Davison from the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, who was killed in Afghanistan last Thursday, and Private Kevin Thompson from 19 Combat Service Support Battalion, who died at the weekend from injuries sustained in Iraq. Once again, we salute their courage and their sacrifice.
	Finally, I am sure the House would also wish to send our condolences and sympathy to the family and friends of PC Richard Gray, who was tragically shot on Sunday. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family.
	This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I will have further such meetings later today.

Simon Hughes: I associate myself both with the tribute to Lord Weatherill and the expressions of condolence.
	In this historic week, I thank the Prime Minister and his Government sincerely for all the work that they, with so many others, have done to bring peace and hope to the 6 million people of Ulster and of Ireland. Before he retires, will the Prime Minister offer some hope also to the hundreds of thousands of people affected by mental illness in our capital city, who fear that if the Government do not change their decision to close the 24-hour emergency clinic at the Maudsley hospital next week, they will be severely affected and the Government will have made a terrible mistake?

Tony Blair: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind words on Northern Ireland.
	We have significantly increased mental health funding. It has gone up by a very large amount—hundreds of millions of pounds—over the past few years, but the way in which mental health services are delivered must always be a matter for local decision making. As the hon. Gentleman knows, although I understand the controversy about the Maudsley, there will be a new, designated space at King's hospital, which will provide a safe environment for mental health service users. A massive amount of additional health care investment, including for mental health, is going into not just his constituency but neighbouring constituencies. What we cannot guarantee, at the same time as we are making this investment, is that health services will always be delivered in exactly the same way.

Ian Lucas: On Tuesday last week the French pharmaceutical company Ipsen Biopharm announced a £37.5 million investment in Wrexham. Does my right hon. Friend consider that that had anything to do with the fact that, two days later, Wrexham was a Labour gain in the National Assembly elections?

Tony Blair: I am certainly happy to celebrate Labour gains last Thursday. I congratulate the new Assembly Member. The fact that major investment is still being made in our economy is one reason the British economy is doing so well, why we are still leading the world in foreign and direct investment, and why many of the leading pharmaceutical companies find Britain the place to come and invest.

David Cameron: I join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to Guardsman Simon Davison and Private Kevin Thompson, who died serving their country. Conservative Members also strongly agree with what he said about the serving police officer, Richard Gray in Shrewsbury. We join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to Jack Weatherill. He was a kind man, a dedicated public servant and a great Speaker of this House.
	Tomorrow, the Prime Minister will announce his departure. Today, he is announcing the splitting up of the Home Office. The former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke), says that the splitting of the Home Office is a "completely batty idea" that will "damage our national security". Why is he wrong?

Tony Blair: He is wrong for this reason: if we want the Home Secretary to focus on terrorism, it is important that we make sure that the Home Office is better able to do so by moving prison and probation services to where the courts are. That makes sense, it is what is done in many other countries, and it is a far better idea, if I may say so, than retaining all those functions in the Home Office and doing what the right hon. Gentleman wants, which is to appoint a special Cabinet Minister under the Home Secretary to take responsibility for terrorism. That would simply confuse the lines of accountability. It is far better, given that this terrorist threat is a new and very dangerous threat that we face, to have the Home Secretary focused on the issue of terrorism to a greater degree. That is the reason for the change.

David Cameron: The last thing a Department in crisis needs is the huge distraction of a big reorganisation. Let us try another former Home Secretary—after all, there are plenty of them about; in fact, some of them might be coming back. The right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) said that this
	"is the wrong move. The last thing this department needs right now is fiddling about with structural changes."
	He went on to say:
	"It's like re-arranging deckchairs on the Titanic"—
	with which the Prime Minister is probably becoming rather familiar. Why does he think that that Home Secretary is wrong as well?

Tony Blair: I have already explained why I believe it is right to take the prisons and probation out of the Home Office and into a new Ministry of Justice. The right hon. Gentleman says that the Home Office has failed across the board, but whereas crime doubled under the previous Government it has reduced under this Government. When we took office, there was a backlog of about 60,000 asylum claims, whereas the figure is now down to 6,000. Whereas trials frequently used to collapse, the figure has been reduced by 20 per cent; the collection of fines is up; and there are extra numbers of police and community support officers, and antisocial behaviour laws. If we want the Home Office to focus on terrorism—I think everyone agrees that we face a different and new threat today—it is sensible to move part of its functions to a Ministry of Justice. That is why it is the right thing to do.

David Cameron: Of course we want the Home Office to focus on terrorism, but let us take just one example of a Home Office fiasco—the failure to deport foreign criminals; we all remember that one. Under the Prime Minister's plans, one Department will be responsible for putting them in prison and another Department will be responsible for deporting them. How is that going to help co-ordination?

Tony Blair: As a matter of fact, as a result of the changes that are already being made, the number of foreign prisoners being deported is about 50 per cent. up from last year.  [ Interruption . ] The criticism was that we were not deporting them; we now are. Having the prisons and probation with the courts will make a lot more sense, because such cases can be managed from the courts system through to prisons and probation. That is why many other countries have the Ministry of Justice system.
	If the right hon. Gentleman wants to talk about deportations and policy, let me bring the House up to date with Tory policy in this area. A couple of months ago— [ Interruption . ]

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition get leeway; hon. Members know that.

Tony Blair: The right hon. Gentleman said a couple of months ago that the way to deal with this issue was to say no to ID cards. He also said,
	"we are announcing plans for the development of a dedicated border police."
	Two days later, the shadow Chancellor said: "until we've made" a
	"study...we couldn't be sure it would be a serious proposal we could put in our manifesto."
	Better than that—who is to carry out this study? Lord John Stevens, who says:
	"I see the absolute benefits of an ID card system."
	The right hon. Gentleman should work his policy out before he criticises ours.

David Cameron: The Prime Minister wants to know our policy, so I shall tell him.
	"In my view, the fit between immigration... crime and prisons... is a proper fit."—[ Official Report, 3 May 2006; Vol. 445, c. 964.]
	Those are not my words; the Prime Minister said them at the Dispatch Box a year ago. If splitting the Home Office is such a good idea, why is not the Home Secretary hanging around to see it through?

Tony Blair: The reason is the one I have given. The result of looking at how we best focus the Home Office on fighting terrorism was not to do what the right hon. Gentleman proposes—his foolish idea of having two Cabinet Ministers with the same responsibility—but to move some of the functions out of the Home Office into the Ministry of Justice. If the right hon. Gentleman would move them back, let him say so, but I think it would be a foolish thing to do.

David Cameron: If the Prime Minister wants to stop that happening, he could call an election and we could stop it right away. I asked him about the Home Secretary and he failed to answer. Is not the problem the fact that the Government are now paralysed? The Home Secretary is splitting his Department, but he has already resigned. We have a Foreign Secretary who is negotiating a European treaty that she will not be around to ratify. We have a Prime Minister, who, even after last week's drubbing, simply does not understand that it is over. Everybody knows who the next Labour leader is—thank God he has got out of his blacked-out limo and come to the House of Commons. Why does the country have to put up with another seven weeks of paralysis?

Tony Blair: I will tell the right hon. Gentleman on what I shall concentrate in the next seven weeks: policy—on the economy, health, education and law and order. Let me give him some advice: if I were him, I would concentrate on policy, too. I have something else of which to inform the House. Yesterday, there was a leading policy speech by the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin), who is in charge of the Conservatives' policy commission. The speech was entitled:
	"Is Cameron Conservatism just a set of attitudes, or is it a political theory?' asks Oliver Letwin".
	Here is the answer:
	"Cameron Conservatism is... an attempt to shift the theory of the State from a provision-based paradigm to a framework-based paradigm. The provision-theory of the modern State is the successor to socialism in the post-Marxist era."
	It concludes with the words:
	"It all goes back to Marx."
	That is Groucho, I assume.

David Cameron: Soon, the Prime Minister will have plenty of time to read all our speeches, but he just does not get it. How can the Department of Health sort itself out when we all know that the Secretary of State is for the chop? The new Secretary of State for Justice was pathetically pleading for his job on the radio this morning: everyone knows that he will not last five minutes.  [Interruption.] I do not know why members of the Cabinet are shouting. The Chancellor's spin doctors are wandering around the lobby handing out all their jobs. This is the Government of the living dead. Why do we have to put up with even more paralysis?

Tony Blair: The Government have run the strongest economy that the country has seen in 10 years. Just last week, health service waiting lists were down again. We have the best school results that the country has ever seen, and living standards for every section of the population are up. The right hon. Gentleman can be as cocky as he likes about the local elections; come a general election, policy counts. On policy, we win and he loses.

David Anderson: Will the Prime Minister join me in sending the best wishes of the House to the people of Northern Ireland on this week's momentous occasion? Will he also send a clear message to the politicians in Northern Ireland that, this time, we expect them to make it work and not let things break down, no matter how hard it gets?

Tony Blair: One of the most remarkable things about yesterday was not just the fact of the institutions being up and running but what I might call the atmospherics in Northern Ireland. They were an extremely good augury for the future. I accept my hon. Friend's point, but I believe that there is now the will to make things work in Northern Ireland. One of the most interesting things about the recent election is that it was back to the normal bread-and-butter issues of politics. That is a huge advance.

Menzies Campbell: I associate myself with the generous tribute that the Prime Minister paid to the former Speaker, Baron Weatherill, who was particularly generous with his hospitality and advice, especially for new Members. May I also associate myself with the Prime Minister's expressions of sympathy and condolence?
	Two years ago, the ombudsman produced a report into the tax credit scheme. Why have that report's recommendations not been fully implemented?

Tony Blair: Many of the report's recommendations are being implemented, which is why the difficulty described today by the National Audit Office is reducing all the time. Let us be quite clear about this. Some 6 million families benefit from tax credit and 10 million children get it; and take-up is way above the old family credit. About 2 million pensioners have been lifted out of acute hardship and about 700,000 children lifted out of relative poverty. That would not have happened without the tax credit system. I do not know whether the right hon. and learned Gentleman is indicating that he is opposed to it, but I can tell him that it has worked miracles for many of the lowest-income people in this country.

Menzies Campbell: It certainly has not worked miracles for everyone. Why are some of the poorest families in this country—38,000 alone last year—being pursued through the courts for money they simply do not have? Why should the most vulnerable pay for the mistakes of the most powerful?

Tony Blair: If there is a mistake and an overpayment, the Treasury is obliged to try to claim that money back. It would not be fair to the remaining taxpayers if that did not happen. Let us be absolutely clear about the vast majority of the millions of families who have benefited from tax credits as a result of that. That is why the incomes of the poorest 40 per cent. of this population have gone up in percentage terms roughly double what they were in the previous 18 years. It has made an immense difference to many families in this country. We must all know of people in families in our own constituencies who, as a result of the working tax credit, have been able to go out and get a job. The job has paid and they have been able to look after their families properly: it has dramatically transformed their lives. Yes, it is true that we must make sure that we remove some of the problems within the system, but tax credits have brought an enormous amount of social justice and benefit in this country overall.

Margaret Moran: Is my right hon. Friend aware that over the past four years Liberal-Tory Luton council has wasted unprecedented millions on temporary and agency staff—and on consultants who told it not to waste money on consultants—while cutting services to the elderly and disabled? Will he ensure that we never see such waste again, that we secure better rights for temporary and agency staff and, most particularly, that we congratulate the people of Luton on showing great wisdom in ensuring a Labour council in Luton?

Tony Blair: I congratulate all my hon. Friend's constituents who worked so hard for that victory. It is absolutely true that many of the cuts imposed on services are indicative of what would happen if the Conservative central Government got back into power. That is one very good reason why they should not.

Peter Luff: As someone who voted for the Iraq war, I know that the events leading up to it and its aftermath have substantially reduced trust not just in the Prime Minister but in the whole political process. Given that the Leader of the House seems to have indicated that there will be full Privy Council inquiry "at an appropriate moment", would not the Prime Minister do a lot to restore his reputation if he held that inquiry now, not waiting for his successor, and apologised for the more obvious errors of judgment?

Tony Blair: I am afraid that I do not agree with that. Let me say this about what has happened, particularly in the last two or three years in Iraq; it is important that people understand it. What is happening in Iraq is essentially that al-Qaeda on the one hand and elements of the Iranian regime on the other are backing terrorism in that country, the purpose of which is to destroy the prospect of that country being able to have the democracy its people have voted for and want. In those circumstances, it is extremely important that we fully support the work that our forces are doing and rebut this idea that somehow people are dying in Iraq as a result of the activities of British or American or other coalition soldiers. They are dying as a result of the activities of terrorists, and our job should be to stand up to them and not give in to them.

John McFall: The Prime Minister might well remember our telephone conversation of Saturday 15 August 1998 when, as duty Minister, I had the sad task of informing him that the bomb that had gone off in Omagh 30 minutes earlier was likely to be Northern Ireland's worst atrocity. Does he agree that it is a testament to the courage and will of people in Northern Ireland that we have come a long way from that almost fatal wound of Omagh so that once mortal enemies are now discussing the real stuff of politics—education, jobs, welfare, and, dare I say it, water rates? Will the Prime Minister congratulate Northern Ireland Assembly Members and, more importantly, the people of Northern Ireland, on their courage and indomitable spirit over these many dark and heartbreaking years and wish them well?

Tony Blair: I do, of course, recall that conversation with my right hon. Friend. The Omagh bomb was a terrible and destructive act of terrorism, and in its aftermath the choice had to be made whether it should be allowed to wreck the peace process or whether it should mean that we redouble our efforts to reach peace. Fortunately, the will of the people in Northern Ireland was that the terrorists should not have their way, and that we should redouble our efforts to find a lasting peace. That is the best thing that we can do to honour properly the memory of those people who died in Omagh on that day.

Philip Dunne: As the Prime Minister knows, Shropshire attracts many retired people. If he plans to spend his retirement there with his family, he will have noticed the spectacular Conservative gains that were achieved there last week. The issue was local democracy, and the Government are consulting the public on a costly reorganisation of local government. The public have spoken through the ballot box. Will the Prime Minister give a parting gift to the people of Shropshire by committing not to put a costly unitary authority in place in Shropshire?

Daniel Kawczynski: Hear, hear!

Tony Blair: The hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne) obviously has strong support from his colleague. The same controversy has arisen in County Durham, and I am afraid that we have to go through a consultation process and a decision will be made. I suspect, however, that in Shropshire—as, indeed, in County Durham—there are different views about the future.

Clive Efford: When my right hon. Friend became Prime Minister, pensioners were the most likely section of society to be living in poverty. Today, they are the least likely, sharing in the economic prosperity under Labour. Will he contrast this Government's achievements on behalf of pensioners with the attempts in the House of Lords and the Greater London authority to cut the availability of the freedom pass, which is enjoyed by thousands of London's pensioners? If the Tories will cut the freedom pass for pensioners, what else does my right hon. Friend think they would cut?

Tony Blair: I thank my hon. Friend for what he said about pensioners in 1997 and now— [ Interruption. ] It is all very well for Tory Members to shout, but we should remember that, over the past 10 years, about 2.5 million pensioners have been lifted out of acute hardship. There has also been a dramatic improvement in the living standards of the poorest pensioners. Many of us remember when every single winter there were stories about pensioners not being able to afford proper heating, but now they have the winter fuel allowance. We have introduced a whole series of benefits for them. The freedom pass is extremely important; it has been a tremendous boon for pensioners and disabled people in London. It has been introduced through partnerships with the Mayor of London and with local councils, and we have managed to ensure that that free local transport is available to pensioners. When the Concessionary Bus Travel Bill comes before the House on Monday, I hope that the Opposition will not put that progress at risk.

Edward Leigh: As someone who voted against the Iraq war, I can still admire the Prime Minister's consistency of purpose. Does he acknowledge, however, that with British and American troops increasingly becoming a magnet for terrorists and therefore often becoming part of the problem rather than the solution, a growing number of people who voted for the war in the United States Senate and in this House, and who think that we have acted with honour, now believe that the time has come for an ordered withdrawal of western troops from the country so that it can find peace and justice according to its own lights?

Tony Blair: I do not in the least disrespect the sincerity of the hon. Gentleman's views, or the fact that he has held them from the outset. However, I want to tell him why I believe that he is profoundly wrong in saying what he has just said, and why, if there are voices across the Atlantic saying it, I disagree with them as well. The fact is that the people who are in the best position to judge are the Iraqis themselves. They have a proper democratically elected Government today, and there is a unanimous view among all sections in Iraq—Sunnis, Shi'as and Kurds—and the people they have elected, who should not be disfranchised in this debate. With one voice, they are saying, "Yes, we wish you to go when the time is right, but not before." And it is not right yet. We still need to ensure, whether in the south or up in Baghdad, that those people who, through terrorism, are trying to destroy the possibility of Iraq getting on its feet are unable to do so. Of course, it is difficult at the moment—our troops are facing an immensely challenging and difficult time, as are the American troops up in Baghdad. The fact is, however, that they are now working with Iraqi security forces, which, in many cases, are taking the lead—three of the four provinces in the south are now in Iraqi hands—in standing up to those, often linked to outside groups, who are trying to destroy the country. When such carnage is being visited on the country through terrorism, the last thing we should do is get out. Instead, we should stay until the job is done, and the best people to judge that are the Iraqis themselves. At least some credit should be given to the democratically elected voices of the Iraqi people.

Eric Illsley: At a time when I and a great many others are working hard to attract inward investment to my constituency of Barnsley and make it an attractive place for public sector relocations under the Lyons review, is not it shameful that the Department for Constitutional Affairs has imposed regional pay rates for court staff in this country, which means that Barnsley will be designated to the lowest pay band and designated a low-income area, and court staff in Barnsley will be paid a lower rate than their exact counterparts working in Sheffield, 14 miles way? Alternatively, is my right hon. Friend's legacy to the country to be one of unfairness in the workplace?

Tony Blair: It is correct that in some cities—London, Manchester, Bristol and Sheffield—higher rates are often paid to attract staff. That is nothing new. We have also done our best to try to make sure that premiums are given to the lowest paid, as is the case with the DCA proposals for Barnsley. My hon. Friend would fully support what we have done for the low paid in this country, in agreeing the minimum wage, the signing of the social chapter, paid holidays, the first rights to trade union recognition and the same treatment for part-time workers as for full-time workers. We can be justifiably proud of the provision for the lowest paid in this country.

Peter Tapsell: At this transitory phase in the right hon. Gentleman's political life, may I commend him for managing to portray, despite the deep disillusionment of his fellow countrymen with his premiership, an optimism that eluded King James II and would have delighted Walter Mitty?

Tony Blair: Some things are never transitory, and the hon. Gentleman is one of them. As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has just reminded me, King James was not re-elected three times as Prime Minister.

John Robertson: What can my right hon. Friend do to allay the fears of my constituents about the proposed tax increases that might be imposed on them? Young families are struggling from day to day to pay the mortgage, never mind an exorbitant tax bill. What can he and the Government do to support those people?

Tony Blair: It is important to remind people that although, for all sorts of reasons, they do not enjoy paying the council tax, they would enjoy a local income tax a lot less—especially two or three-earner households, who would be very hard hit. The single most important thing that we can do is to keep the economy strong. Fortunately, the economy of Scotland is strong today, and we need to make it even stronger.

Brian Binley: Last week, a boy of 13 pulled a fake gun on a teacher in Mereway community college in my constituency. Earlier this year, we experienced a spate of vicious attacks on bus drivers. Yesterday, we learned that muggings in Northampton in April exceeded the previous monthly average by a massive 79. Is the Prime Minister happy that my constituents have already defined his legacy as failed on crime, and failed on the causes of crime?

Tony Blair: According to the information I have here, in Northamptonshire there has been an 8 per cent. fall in overall crime—and, incidentally, an 8 per cent. fall in domestic burglary and a 15 per cent. fall in motor vehicle theft—and there are actually 1,300 more police officers than there were 10 years ago.
	Of course I am very sorry about what has happened in the hon. Gentleman's constituency. Crime will still happen, as it will under any Government; but under this Government crime has fallen significantly in the past 10 years, following a Conservative Government under whom it doubled.

Graham Stringer: When and how will my right hon. Friend insist on the supremacy of this elected House over the other place, and ensure that the 17 casinos to which we agreed are built?

Tony Blair: We hope very shortly to present proposals to ensure that the regional casinos are agreed and introduced. I entirely understand what my hon. Friend says, and he will know that not only am I extremely sympathetic to the point of constitutional principle—which is that this House should have primacy over the other House—but I have never understood why Blackpool and Manchester should be pitted against each other. If the money is there and the investment is possible, let us have both.  [Interruption.] I find it extraordinary that the Conservatives have put the Manchester casino in jeopardy, and are going around the streets of Blackpool telling people that they support the casino there. If we had had our way originally, without their intervention, we would have been able to have both.

Northern Ireland

Peter Hain: Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement on Northern Ireland.
	I do not think it possible to overestimate the significance of yesterday's events at Stormont. In effect, we witnessed the final resolution of what has for centuries been the most intractable source of political conflict in the whole of Europe, and its significance is not confined to relations within these islands. What happened on 8 May 2007 showed the world how "A Shared Future" can emerge from even the most bitterly divided and blood-stricken past—and we must never forget how much misery and suffering that caused.
	Many people, including Members in all parts of the House, worked tirelessly to make yesterday possible. The foundations were set by the 1998 Good Friday agreement, with the principles of consent and power-sharing at its core, but seeing the Democratic Unionist party and Sinn Fein going into government together on a fair and equitable basis makes "historic" seem a cliché. The fact that they have done it without the DUP's ceasing to be the DUP, and without Sinn Fein's ceasing to be Sinn Fein, is all the more remarkable.
	When we all witnessed that now iconic picture of the leaders of the DUP and Sinn Fein together for the very first time on 26 March, we knew that Northern Ireland and the wider world would never be the same again. Since then, by working together, the DUP and Sinn Fein have shown that the greater good can be served without the sacrifice of either principle or integrity. Indeed, I was delighted that the first letter signed jointly by the First Minister and Deputy First Minister asked me to leave my office in Stormont castle to enable them to move in, in time for yesterday's first meeting of the Assembly and formation of the Executive. Never has an eviction notice been so eagerly anticipated or so warmly received.
	Having met the First and Deputy First Ministers together, I have been struck since by their business-like approach to preparing for government and—perhaps even more remarkably—by their cordial and warm personal interaction. Above all, they have shown that age-old enmities can be overcome. That is truly inspirational, as we saw yesterday when they preached together at Stormont a common gospel of healing.
	I am convinced that devolution is here to stay. It would now be as unthinkable for Northern Ireland to ask for a return to direct rule in the future as it would be for Scotland or Wales. Indeed, who would have imagined that, as of today, of all the devolved Administrations, Northern Ireland has the only settled Government in place?
	The key to the future peace and prosperity of everyone in Northern Ireland lies in the shared future that the new Assembly and Executive epitomise. That shared future must go beyond the "big politics" of Parliament Buildings. Astonishing as the political transformation over the past two years has been, there is much more to be done. We must find a way of dealing with the past and addressing the needs of victims and survivors. Although last summer's marching season went off more peacefully and with greater consultation than ever before, a global solution to parading still needs to be negotiated. I hope that the review team headed by Lord Paddy Ashdown will help to achieve that. There are still too many so-called "peace walls" that divide communities in Northern Ireland, and some parts of Northern Ireland society continue to feel isolated, marginalised, deprived and out of the mainstream. I am thinking especially of loyalism and its place in the shared future.
	We have always said that we would support and encourage those who wanted to work to a positive agenda, who wanted to bring about change and who had sustainable mechanisms for doing that. People have a right to have their identity, their culture and their traditions respected, but if loyalism does not get into the mainstream and catch the tide that is taking Northern Ireland forward, there is a real danger that, despite the best intentions, the loyalist community will be left behind and further isolated, because no one will understand why there are groups within loyalism that still cling to an armed past. Last week's declaration by the Ulster Volunteer Force and Red Hand Commando that they will end their paramilitary activity was therefore very welcome.
	Guns, drugs and crime have no place within a community whose people want the best for their families, the best for their community and recognition of their core values. I want loyalism to play a full part in the new Northern Ireland—a full part in the shared future—as we should all want it to do, because loyalism anchored to peace, the rule of law and democracy has an honourable place in that future.
	Northern Ireland has changed immeasurably since direct rule was introduced in 1972—the year when, as a student, I first visited. Apart from anything else, Northern Ireland is fast becoming a multicultural, multi-faith and forward-looking community, as evidenced by the election of Anna Lo as the first person of Chinese origin to become a member of a legislative body in Europe. That is not the only such first for Northern Ireland; it also had the first civil partnership ceremony anywhere in the UK. That is all part of the shared future.
	The whole process demonstrates what relentless attention by Government and persistent negotiations regardless of crises, collapses and depressing stalemates can achieve, and that must give hope to those trying to resolve conflicts the world over. For generations, the politics of Northern Ireland has been a sometimes murderous zero-sum game of winners and losers. Yesterday saw an end to that, and whatever the challenges that lie ahead, they will be played out on the field of politics and democracy.
	The Members of the Legislative Assembly who came together in Parliament Buildings yesterday amidst a great joyous mood of reconciliation carry the hopes and aspirations of a people who have yearned for peace, stability and prosperity, and who have waited so terribly long to see it. I know that the whole House will support all of them as we enter this new and exciting era.

David Lidington: May I first thank the Secretary of State for his statement and for giving me advance sight of it? As the restoration of devolution to Stormont has resulted in changes in the Secretary of State's ministerial team, may I also take this opportunity to say that Conservative Members will miss the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr. Hanson) and the hon. Member for Inverclyde (David Cairns)? Both of those former Northern Ireland Ministers have always been courteous and good-humoured in their dealings with the Opposition and we wish them both well.
	I am happy to associate myself and my right hon. and hon. Friends with the Secretary of State's words about all those whose efforts over the years made possible yesterday's historic and moving ceremony at Stormont. Of course, politicians of all parties did their bit, but I hope that the Secretary of State agrees that peace today would not have been possible without the courage and sacrifice of the police and the armed forces, and the dogged endurance of the people of Northern Ireland over nearly 40 years of violence.
	As the Secretary of State acknowledged in his statement, devolution now opens the door to enduring peace and genuine reconciliation, but daunting challenges nevertheless remain. I want to put questions to him about three of those challenges, the first of which concerns loyalism. Last week's declaration by the Ulster Volunteer Force was indeed welcome, but does the Secretary of State agree that it is not enough for the UVF just to declare that it has abandoned violence? It needs to show by its actions that it actually has done so. It must decommission its weapons, and decommissioning needs to be independently verified by General de Chastelain's commission.
	The second challenge concerns the future of the Provisional IRA. The Government and the Independent Monitoring Commission say that the IRA is no longer a terrorist threat, which is welcome news indeed, yet it remains a proscribed terrorist organisation on both sides of the Irish border. If we are to consider devolving criminal justice, including decisions about prosecutions, to devolved Ministers in as little as 11 months from now, surely that paradox has to be resolved. Do the Government believe that the IRA has now transformed itself into a kind of old comrades association that no longer needs to be proscribed? On the other hand, if proscription is still right and necessary, do the Government believe that at the same time it is right to entrust the criminal justice system to people who include those who, until recently, were active IRA commanders and who still maintain the strongest of ties to that organisation?
	Thirdly, what steps do the Government propose to take to help Northern Ireland come to terms with its past? As the Secretary of State knows, there are nearly 2,000 unsolved murders from the troubles—2,000 families and networks of friends who have had no sense of justice being done. Thousands of victims and bereaved families will carry physical and emotional scars for as long as they live. At present, a number of different types of selective historical inquiry are taking place into particular killings. As the Secretary of State knows, responses to those inquiries are eating up a vast amount of police time and resources, which are having to be diverted from current policing priorities. I acknowledge the acute sensitivity of this issue and I accept that there is unlikely to be a quick or easy answer. However, does the Secretary of State agree with me that coming to terms with the past is essential if we are to build genuine reconciliation in Northern Ireland, and that that should be done in a way that puts the interests of victims and families first? Will he work now with other parties in this House and in Northern Ireland to see if together we can agree on a way forward?

Peter Hain: I very much welcome the hon. Gentleman's statement in broad terms, but first, with permission, Mr. Speaker, may I send my commiserations to the leader of the Democratic Unionist party, the right hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley), at the death over the weekend from cancer, at the age of only 45, of George Dawson, a Member of the Legislative Assembly? He was the grandmaster of the Independent Orange Lodge, and his funeral is tomorrow. Also, I acknowledge that, because MLAs are today running procedures for appointing their committee chairmen and women, vice-chairs and other committee members, DUP Members have been unable to attend the House today as I know they would have wished to do.
	In responding to the points made by the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington), I first thank him for the warm remarks he made about my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr. Hanson), who played an outstanding role over the past two years, helped me and the whole process immeasurably and is hugely respected. My hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde (David Cairns) has also done excellent work over this past year. My right hon. Friend's remaining portfolio of the political process and criminal justice will be taken over by the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle), who will do an outstanding job as she has done in the past year in other areas, and by the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale, East (Paul Goggins), who has gained huge respect. He has been a fantastic security Minister, and he will continue to be so.
	I agree with the hon. Member for Aylesbury about the outstanding courage that has been shown by the police and the armed forces over the decades of the troubles. He made the strong point, with which I agree, that loyalism and the loyalist leaders must do more than simply make promises, as the UVF did, in very welcome terms, last week. I have asked the Chief Constable for advice on whether specification is still appropriate for the UVF and I await that advice in due course. It was very important that the leadership of the UVF declared its intention to abandon paramilitarism and criminality in the clearest terms, but the hon. Gentleman was right to say that there has to be delivery on the decommissioning of weapons. There was a certain uncertainty about what that meant exactly, and the only legal way to decommission in the sense that will give confidence to the rest of the community—including this House—is to engage with the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning.
	On the question that the hon. Gentleman raised about the future of the Provisional IRA, he will know that the IMC made a particular point of saying not just that it had disbanded its paramilitary capacity and its engineering capacity to wage terror or war or violence in the future, but that the leadership had also, through the discipline of its organisation, managed to deliver that and get all the members and so-called volunteers to abide by its diktat, including ending criminality. The IMC was clear on that point. Obviously, there need to be further developments, but the intention to devolve policing and justice is an ambition of the Government's, agreed at St. Andrews and repeated since.
	We would like to see a target of May next year, by which time the devolution of policing and justice can be achieved. That policy is supported by all the parties in Northern Ireland, although there are disagreements, especially among the DUP and the UUP about whether the target of barely a year's time is achievable. Let us see whether the incredible pace of change over the past few weeks, expressed yesterday—and, in a sense, sanctified yesterday—can see that progress being made. Undoubtedly, that will have to take into account the wider security situation.
	The hon. Gentleman mentioned Sinn Fein Ministers, and it was significant yesterday that they willingly and without qualification took the pledge of office, which included an absolute commitment, as the House legislated in the Northern Ireland (St. Andrews Agreement) Act 2006, to support the police and the rule of law.
	I agree with the hon. Gentleman's final point about the past, and that is why I said in my statement that the past still has to be addressed. I was very struck, as I know he will have been on his frequent visits—people appreciate the diligence with which he pursues his duties—by the fact that, despite the incredible events that led up to the remarkable nature of yesterday, Northern Ireland still keeps getting dragged back to the past. Although inquiries must naturally reach their end—costing £2 million so far; £100 million has gone to pay lawyers' fees, which are ratcheting up astronomically day by day—I do not think that they will deal with the past, whatever may emerge from the reports that are produced. We need to have a frank debate and I will certainly give the hon. Gentleman a categoric assurance that we are considering the issue. My hon. Friends the Under-Secretaries and I will look into that and consult widely with the parties, and I will certainly talk to other parties about it, including the hon. Gentleman's. We must try to find a way of consulting that enables us to move forward and underpins the developments of yesterday. I am grateful for his support.

Eddie McGrady: I very much welcome the wholesome and full statement made by the Secretary of State to reflect what happened at Stormont yesterday. It was a day that I have longed to see throughout the time that I have been in public office—and I have held office for some four decades, during the worst of the troubles. Enormous progress has been made.
	Like those who spoke yesterday, the Secretary of State was right to remember the victims and survivors in our society. They must be remembered, as must the fact that some of the people who hold the highest office have been purveyors of hatred and perpetrators of violence. They in turn must do all in their power to undo their evil deeds and attitudes. I hope that the Secretary of State will use his office to facilitate that.
	In his statement, the Secretary of State said that we had witnessed the "final resolution" of the problems in Northern Ireland, but does he agree with the First Minister, who said yesterday that we were at the beginning of the resolution of our problems, and that yesterday was a new beginning? Also, does he agree that the shared future to which he referred, and to which we all aspire, is one that must be shared not only by the extremes but by the entire community?
	Will the Secretary of State ensure that the Chancellor makes available a reasonable financial package to assist progress in Northern Ireland? We do not have a begging-bowl attitude but, over 35 years of direct rule, much of our infrastructure has been neglected or, at the very least, not been kept up to standard. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will take on board the points that I have made.

Peter Hain: I agree with virtually everything that the hon. Gentleman said. Yesterday closed the door on the past and opened the door to a new future, but there are still many challenges ahead. I agree too that the shared future must involve everyone, and not just the most polarised parts of the politics.
	I pay special tribute to the role played by the hon. Gentleman and his Social Democratic and Labour party colleagues. They were there right at the beginning of the process, along with members of the Ulster Unionist party. I should also like to pay tribute to the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) and her colleagues. David Trimble and others showed tremendous courage at the beginning of the process, and took a lot of hits for doing so, but the SDLP deserves particular praise for expressing its support for policing at a time when that was a most difficult thing to do in nationalist communities. That helped to create the circumstances that were signalled and symbolised so momentously yesterday.
	The hon. Member for South Down (Mr. McGrady) asked about a financial package, and he is right to say that that has nothing to do with a begging-bowl mentality. It is about giving the new Executive a flying start and the best possible financial platform from which to deliver for the voters, so many of whom made it clear in the elections in February and March that they wanted devolution to be successful and local politicians to take charge. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor is very aware of that, and big progress has been made even over the past few days. I am sure that a satisfactory package can be finalised.

Lembit �pik: As the longest serving Northern Ireland spokesperson for any mainland party, I have seen the peace process from its difficult beginning to its happier end. In those 10 years, as the Government's critical friend and ally, I never lost faith. In that context, I applaud the current Secretary of Stateand especially his predecessor the late Mo Mowlam, without whom the peace process would never really have got off the ground.
	I also add my praise for the contribution made by David Trimble, which has never really been fully appreciated by the House at large. In addition, we should acknowledge that this is a truly valuable part of the Prime Minister's legacy, and something of which he can be proud.
	The unsung heroes of the peace process are the members of the Alliance party of Northern Ireland. Their contribution far exceeds the size of their party, and it is important to give them the recognition that they are due.
	Looking ahead, what changes will there be in the way in which Northern Ireland business is handled here? Will the Secretary of State confirm that important decisions affecting Northern Ireland will no longer be taken after short debates on unamendable orders in Statutory Instrument Committees? Surely they are a thing of the past. What is the Secretary of State's role going to be? Does he intend to continue administering legislation from Westminster, or will he disengage his Department by creating direct links between Whitehall Departments and the Northern Ireland Assembly and its Ministers? Finally, will the Secretary of State make available significant funds to facilitate true progress towards integrated education and health services, and to provide much needed infrastructure?
	It is a good time to be generous, now that Northern Ireland politicians have made the hardest investment. They have replaced heartbreak and division with a shared future, where the bombs and gunshots are the echoes of a tragic past that we must never forget, or relive.

Peter Hain: I welcome what the hon. Gentleman has said, and I thank him for the bipartisan support that he has given to the Government over the years that he has held the Northern Ireland portfolio. I also thank his party colleagues, as their contribution has been extremely valuable.
	I agree that the Alliance party politicians have made a big contribution. They continue to do so: it is significant that the party gained at the last election, even though many people had predicted that it would lose members and even be almost extinguished. Earlier, I mentioned the election of Anna Lo, which says something about the new Northern Ireland.
	The hon. Gentleman mentioned my predecessors, and I paid tribute to them on Second Reading of the Northern Ireland (St. Andrews Agreement) (No. 2) Bill, and in passing in my statement today. I should like to single out my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy), from whom I took over. During a difficult period, he did an enormous amount of the spade work needed to bring people together for the 2004 Leeds Castle talks. Were it not for the Northern Bank robbery and the murder of Robert McCartney and so on, he might have been the one to make the statement that I have made today. We are all in his debt for the work that he did. That work lasted longer than the three years for which he was Secretary of State: my right hon. Friend worked with Mo Mowlam right at the beginning, when the Good Friday agreement was negotiated. Those who know the detail of the period know that he did a great deal of the leg work and heavy lifting at that time.
	The hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit pik) asked about Northern Ireland business in the House. Obviously, the ministerial team still has a considerable amount of important business to do. I shall have an overview of security and justice and of the political process, while the Northern Ireland Office will retain responsibility for the Prison Service, the probation service, the Police Service of Northern Ireland and so on. Those are proper matters for us to undertake, and we will continue to engage with our ministerial opposite numbers.
	In that connection, I remind the House that I am also Secretary of State for Wales. I believe that the role of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, especially once the devolution of policing and justice has taken place, will increasingly resemble the role of the Secretary of State for Walesthat is, being a facilitator and interlocutor for the devolved Governments, and the person who assists them in their ambitions.
	The hon. Gentleman also asked about Orders in Council. Obviously, their numbers will diminish to a considerable degree, but some will still be brought forward, for example in the implementation of the devolution of justice and policing provisions that have been passed by this House already. There will be Orders in Council procedures to implement those provisions when the Assembly decides that it wants to accept that devolution. Therefore, Orders in Council will still have a role, and I hope that we will be able to carry on working with the hon. Gentleman. I hope too that he will not suffer an allergic reaction, as it were, to every Order in Council necessary to take Northern Ireland forward. However, I am sure that he will be relieved to know that there will be fewer and fewer of them.

David Winnick: I congratulate the Secretary of State and many others, not least my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy). Is my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State aware that all of us on the Labour Benches are very pleased indeed that the name of Mo Mowlam has been mentioned today? She was a politician of great political courage, as she showed time and again when she was the first Secretary of State for Northern Ireland after we came into office. Does he agree that one other person should be mentioned? John Hume, who initiated the talks between his partythe Social Democratic and Labour partyand Sinn Fein, was often denounced by some people in Northern Ireland and perhaps here, but he pioneered the process that led to what happened yesterday in Northern Ireland.

Peter Hain: I wholeheartedly agree with everything that my hon. Friend said about Mo Mowlam's crucial and healing response and the role that she played at the beginning and about John Hume's outstanding courage from the moment he engaged with Gerry Adams. The way in which John Hume drove the process through, and his vision and eloquence, helped to get us to where we are. On the Second Reading of the emergency legislation on 27 March, I paid tribute to all the individuals that my hon. Friend has mentioned and to John Major, the Prime Minister and many others who played a crucial role. I did not think it was right to repeat what I said, but I agree with my hon. Friend.

Lady Hermon: May I say on behalf of the remaining Ulster Unionist Members in the House that I am unanimous in welcoming what happened yesterday? The Secretary of State is correct: we did take hits. But, having said that, I welcome enormously the events of yesterday at Stormont. I would like to place on the record thanks on behalf of the Ulster Unionist party to various and successive Secretaries of State and direct rule Ministers, who may be leaving us on account of the restoration of devolution. I am most grateful to the Secretary of State for putting on the record a tribute to George Dawson MLA and for sending his condolences to the family. His death was a very sad loss to the Democratic Unionist partythe alternative Unionist partyand a huge loss to his wife and two daughters.
	I need an assurance on one particular matter, please. I am talking about the fact, and it is a fact, that the new First Minister, whom I welcome warmly to his position, as I do the Deputy First MinisterI look forward with great expectation and interest to seeing how they work togetheris the Moderator of the Free Presbyterian Church. That Church teaches that homosexuality is evil. Will the Secretary of State kindly give assurances to the many young and not so young gay and lesbian people and transsexuals in Northern Ireland that, in the forthcoming new, rosy Northern Ireland, there will be no diminution or erosion of the rights and protections that are extended to them?

Peter Hain: On the hon. Lady's latter point, the legislation, including the somewhat controversial legislation that I and my ministerial team took through Parliament earlier this year, makes it completely impossible to exercise any discrimination against people on the grounds of sexuality, adding to the other grounds already in the statute in Northern Ireland. That answers her point.
	The hon. Lady said that, representing the UUP, she was unanimous. I have to say that she is unanimously admired and held in affection by all Members of the House. I thank her for what she said about George Dawson. I remember him being at the first ever meeting of the loyal orders with any Secretary of StateI think he was helpful in facilitating thatwhich I held with them last year. He helped to achieve a situation in which greater trust was built around parading.

Paul Murphy: May I add my words of condolence about George Dawson and tell my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and his team, and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, how much I have admired the work that they have put in, particularly in the last year or so, on what has now been achieved in Northern Ireland? May I also mention those members of the Conservative party, including Sir John Major and the Ministers who handed their baton to me when we took over in 1997, who worked to bring about peace in Northern Ireland? Does my right hon. Friend agree that, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Down (Mr. McGrady) and the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit pik) said, although it is absolutely right to pay particular tribute to Sinn Fein and the DUP for the enormous amount of work that they have put into the settlement, the Good Friday agreement was about the inclusivity of all parties in Northern Ireland, including the SDLP and the Ulster Unionist party, because they hold ministries, the Alliance party and the Progressive Unionist party? In this new devolved Northern Ireland, they too will play an important role in making Northern Ireland a more prosperous and stable place in which to live.

Peter Hain: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for all that he has said. I want to echo and underline the points that he made about the inclusivity of the process in relation to all the parties, including the SDLP and the UUPwhich are in government with Sinn Fein and the DUPthe Alliance party, the Greens and everybody else, although people will not think I am churlish when I say I am glad that that does not include the independent Unionist party anymore. He is right to say that the Good Friday agreement included all parties, and that is very important. That spirit should be taken forward. I think that this situation will stick because the two most polarised parties have agreed. The problem that the SDLP and the UUP faced in the past was that there were people further away from the centre on both sides who in one way or another undermined what they were trying to do and were not in the tent. What is good about the current situationthis is why I believe this is the political end game in a real senseis that the two most polarised parties are included. They must remember that all parties are part of the Good Friday process, as my right hon. Friend has emphasised.

Andrew MacKay: In this momentous and splendid week for Northern Irelanda week that many of us, in the bleakest moments, thought would never actually happendoes the Secretary of State think that it is worth reflecting that patience really has been a virtue? It would have been all too easy at times to have compromised with the men of violence. The fact that that did not happen has meant that this can now be a lasting peace. He and his Ministers are to be congratulated on their patience.

Peter Hain: I am particularly grateful for what the right hon. Gentleman has said, given his role over the years and his interest and experience. Even though I, as the person to whom the baton fell as Secretary of State at this particular time, was increasingly optimistic that things would work over the last few monthsthe hon. Member for Aylesbury knows that I have been optimistic throughoutnevertheless many of us never believed that we would see what we have seen, in the visual pictures and in every other respect.
	The right hon. Gentleman's point about patience being a virtue is right. I made a point, using other terminology, about the doggedness of trying whatever device one could use or opportunity one could find to keep going and keep the process alive, even in the bleakest momentsmy right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen knew many of those during his period as Secretary of State and before as Minister of State. There were high points and there were very low points. This process can be a bit of a model for other processes around the world. People have given the middle east attention from time to time, but there has not been the same relentless forensic attention as there has been in Northern Ireland. That was started by Conservative Governments under Margaret Thatcher and John Major and carried onI think everybody will agreeby the Prime Minister and his Secretaries of State and Ministers with tremendous verve, dynamism and energy. That needs to be recognised.

Jeremy Corbyn: I congratulate the Secretary of State on the achievements yesterday and on the whole process. It really is a quite incredible achievement altogether. Will he acknowledge that those people who managed to maintain a dialogue with all sections of the community, including the nationalist communities, in the 1970s and 1980s played an important part in opening the doors, and that the Hume-Adams accord was an important step towards bringing about the Good Friday agreement? Will he acknowledge that the origins of the troubles in 1968, and all the awful conflict that went on after that and all the deaths that resulted, lie partly in the exclusion of a large proportion of the population from decent employment and decent opportunities? Will he acknowledge that it is important that the Assembly recognises it has to deliver good quality public services, employment and hope to the entire population it serves to ensure that that horrible period never returns?

Peter Hain: I very much agree with my hon. Friend that the origins of the dispute are historically complex and go back centuries. They include the relationship between the island of Ireland and Britain. However, social exclusion and fierce discrimination against the Catholic population were undoubtedly an important part of what led to the troubles, with all the terror and unacceptable violence that occurred.
	I thank my hon. Friend for his continued interest in Northern Ireland and the whole island of Ireland during his time as a Member of Parliament and before that. I agree that dialogue with everyone has been a lesson. John Hume's actions were very unpopular at the time of the Hume-Adams initiative, while Gerry Adams was courageous as well. However, the process triggered the start of the melting of the ice that allowed things to be picked up later on.

Nicholas Winterton: As a committed UnionistI make no bones about thatI warmly welcome the developments in Ulster and the return of peace, stability and devolved government. Does the Secretary of State agree that that has happened partly because of the very brave stance taken by the leader of the Democratic Unionist party, the right hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley)? He has perhaps made a great sacrifice to lead, with the support of Sinn Fein, all the people in Northern Ireland back to peace, democracy and stability. Will the Secretary of State assure me that the Government will always be totally even-handed when they deal with the Assembly in Northern Ireland and that they will not in any way put pressure on the Assembly in respect of any particular policy? Surely, allowing Assembly Members to sort out their own problems, as the Government are apparently willing to do, is the best way to achieve future peace, prosperity and success in Ulster.

Peter Hain: I could not have put the hon. Gentleman's last point better myselfI thank him for it. I have never thought that exerting pressure is a very profitable exercise, especially regarding the right hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley), and I think that the same goes for the Deputy First Minister. I intend that we will support the devolved Government in Northern Ireland in whatever way we can, including through a decent financial package, but this is a matter for them. As I said to the First Minister yesterday, The power has passed to you. Good luck. We will be watching in the wings and giving support, but we will certainly treat everyone even-handedly.
	The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) describes himself as a committed Unionist. Committed Unionists have nothing to fear from the future. They have the votes in the referendum behind them. If there is a change in the future, it will occur democratically through the will of the people, if it happens at all. I know that the hon. Gentleman, as a committed Unionist, will respect that, because that is democracy.

Michael Connarty: I warmly welcome the process, as far as it has now gone, and what looks like a period of stability. Hon. Members should pay tribute to the former Member for Upper Bann, who sacrificed his party by being the flexible Unionist in Northern Ireland and was then crushed between two dominant hard-line forces. I hope that there will be a revival of that flexible Unionism.
	The Secretary of State will know that I have been engaged in the process for a number of years, both here and across in Northern Ireland. I thus have many unanswered questions about how we will go forward. The hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) talked about the unsolved murders. The Secretary of State will know that a member of my extended family was killed by a murder squad from the Ulster Volunteer Force in McGurk's bar in 1973. The driver, Mr. Campbell, admitted his guilt and served time, but the bombers have never been named. Whatever process takes place, I hope that such unsolved crimes will be raised. Philip Garrywe called him Uncle Phillywas killed and his last remaining relative, Eilene Killin, still lives in Belfast. I hope that someday she will get the peace of knowing that the people who did that at least admitted it and felt a sense of sorrow for what they did during those terrible times.
	The Secretary of State might be able to answer a question about engagement that remains unanswered. When I was last in South Armagh as part of the armed forces parliamentary scheme, I was told that the police still could not drive into South Armagh and that they had to be brought in by helicopter. Has the situation advanced and will people living in what seems to be a criminal environment in South Armagh admit of the rule of law there?
	Finally, will the Secretary of State give the necessary resources

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is a statement; the hon. Gentleman has had a lot of leeway.

Peter Hain: I thank my hon. Friend for the interest that he has shown in Northern Ireland over many years and for his activity. It was valuable that he and other hon. Members did that because it brought a wealth of experience and expertise to our debates, which meant that the people and parties of Northern Ireland always knew that there were Members on both sides of the House, including my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn), to whom they could turn when they wanted to put forward a point of view.
	I know about the member of my hon. Friend's extended family who was savagely murdered by the Ulster Volunteer Force because my hon. Friend and I have been in touch about that matter. I hope that there will eventually be a solution to that case and all the others. I am struck by the fact that, as things settle down, it might be a good idea to consider whether hon. Members can develop a relationship with Members of the devolved Assembly in Northern Ireland.
	My hon. Friend talks about south Armagh and policing. The Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale, East (Paul Goggins), the Minister with responsibility for security, drove himself into Crossmaglen a few weeks ago, which would have been unthinkable for any security Minister or Secretary of State even last year. The police now do so. I am not saying that there are not dissident republicans around who, though marginalised and isolated, are still dangerous and threatening and that everything is a bed of roses, but the security situation has completely transformed to the point at which soldiers were withdrawn from Crossmaglen at the end of March. The remaining home-based Army soldiers will be withdrawn at the end of July, which will leave still stationed in Northern Ireland only a garrison that can be deployed anywhere in the world, from Afghanistan to Iraq.

Gerald Howarth: My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) mentioned in particular the role played by the armed forces. On this momentous day, may I invite the Secretary of State to pay particular tribute to the contribution, courage and determination of all the members of Her Majesty's armed forces who gave their lives in the pursuit of peace in Northern Ireland, which we celebrate today? We should send a message to their families who, perhaps even 30 years on, are feeling hurt and pain after their family members gave their lives for the cause of peace in Northern Ireland.
	I heard what the Secretary of State said about inquiries. He knows my view: the Saville inquiry should never have been set up in the first place. To prevent the reopening of old woundsperhaps this can take place in the context of the other inquiries that my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury mentionedwill he ensure that the Saville inquiry is wound up with the lawyers sent off to do more lucrative business, if they can find it?

Peter Hain: The Saville inquiry is due to report [ Laughter. ] I hesitate to use the word shortly, but the inquiry has been going for quite a time and it is in its twilight period. I do not think it would be sensible to wind it up at this point.
	I certainly join the hon. Gentleman in wholeheartedly paying tribute to the armed forces and the role that they played over many difficult years. Given your interest in Northern Ireland, Mr. Speaker, I know that you would have been very excited by the joyous mood at Stormont Buildings yesterday. I was struck by the fact that several victims and victims' representatives were present, including one of the most prominent Royal Ulster Constabulary George cross widows, Wilma Carson, who was really pleased by the way things were going. One of the most striking things about what has happened is that a healing process has started, although it still has a long way to go, as I said earlier.

Stephen Pound: In the warm spirit of bipartisanship and cross-party agreement that exists on this occasion, may I mention that the Chairman of the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs, the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack), would certainly have been present today if he were not unwell? I am sure that the whole House sends its best wishes to the hon. Gentleman, who, I am sure, has had a radio receiver brought to his bedside so that he can follow our deliberations.
	When the Secretary of State referred to the fair following wind that should be given to the newly established Assembly in Northern Ireland, he answered a question that caused many of us concern. It is important that infrastructure in Northern Ireland receives the financial attention it desperately needs. Will he tell the House what the mechanism will be for that fair following financial wind? Will it be a statement, part of the pre-Budget report, or, as is traditional, a report to the Northern Ireland Grand Committee? That is an extremely serious issue on which the House will have to concentrate in the months, and possibly even years, ahead.

Peter Hain: In respect of the financial package, I agree with my hon. Friend. Let us remember that the Chancellor has already offered 18 billionan enormous amount for a place the size of Northern Irelandin infrastructure support over the coming period. That is part of a package worth more than 50 billion over the next four years. It is the only part of the United Kingdom that has some certainty about its budget for the next four years at this relatively early stage of the comprehensive spending review. The Irish Republic has committed 400 million to infrastructure, too, so there is tremendous opportunity and support for taking forward the projects to which my hon. Friend referred.
	I received a message from the Chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee to say that he was indisposed with bronchitis. He was not able to be at Stormont yesterday, although I know that he wanted to be there. He probably not only has a radio next to him, but has the BBC Parliament channel on by his bedside. He is one of the most respected parliamentarians in the House, and I pay tribute to the role of the Committee, which has given us valuable advice, and sometimes valuable criticism, over the period of its work.

Angus MacNeil: On behalf of the Scottish National party and Plaid of Wales, and as a Scottish nationalist with an Irish mother, I would like to add my voice and express my relief, but overwhelmingly I would like to offer my congratulations on the developments in Northern Ireland yesterday. If ever there was an example of Churchill's maxim
	To jaw-jaw is better than to war-war,
	we are seeing it in Northern Ireland today. We should praise the efforts made over the years by the Democratic Unionist party and Sinn Fein, but also by the Social Democratic and Labour party, the Ulster Unionist party and, in the Republic, Fianna Fil and Fine Gael. I know that my aunt in Dungarvan, County Waterford, would want me to recognise the efforts of John Major and the current Prime Minister, which indeed I do. Finally, I add a comment in my native tongue of Scottish Gaelic, which is a first cousin of Irish Gaelic, but without any of the perceived tribal, political or religious overtones: gum bi mile mile beannachd air sluagh Eirinn a Tuath.

Peter Hain: I do not know what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but I am sure that it is in the spirit of this debate.

Michael Penning: I thank the Secretary of State for his kind comments about the servicemen and women who have given so much for Northern Ireland and our country over the years. As a humble Guardsman, I served in Armagh in Northern Ireland in the 1970s, and we sacrificed an awful lot. On that note, before we close the door completely on the past, may I bring up the tragic situation of Captain Robert Nairac, who was my captain from 1st Battalion the Grenadier Guards? He was the first man to break my nose; he was an excellent boxer. His family, quite rightly, would like to know what has happened to his body, and we would all like to put that question to rest. Will the Secretary of State tell the House what is happening in the negotiations to find out what happened to Captain Robert Nairac?

Peter Hain: I commend the hon. Gentleman's role and that of his colleagues. The predicament experienced by the family of Captain Robert Nairac is appalling and unacceptable. Many relatives of those who have disappeared face the awful situation of not knowing what happened to loved ones or where their remains might be. We have provided the opportunity, through recent legislation, for death certificates to be issued. That is at least something, but it is not sufficient and we will continue to pursue the matter.
	In the spirit of the hon. Gentleman's remarks, I talked to a former Ulster Defence Regiment sergeant who had twice suffered horrific attacks by the IRA, in which he narrowly escaped death. I was struck by the fact that despite his being injured, and despite his family having seen the events on at least one occasion, he still wanted the process to work, and he welcomed the fact that Martin McGuinness was the Deputy First Minister. He said, Look, I may have fought all these people, and they may have tried to take my life away years ago, but I want to see them in government with other parties, democratically pursuing their interests in peace and with respect for the rule of law. I thought that that change of heart by somebody who had suffered what he had suffered boded very well for the future.

Ministry of Justice

David Hanson: Today I am delivering a statement that the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice will make in another place at 3.30 pm. Today is the first day of the Ministry of Justice. Creating our new Department is the right thing to do; it is the logical next step, after decades of constitutional and criminal justice reform, in delivering what I believe will be a world-class justice system that has the protection of the public and the reduction of crime and reoffending at its heart.
	The independence of the judiciary is paramount to the success of any justice system and vital to the well-being of our nation. I will continue to uphold that independence, as is my constitutional and statutory duty, and so, too, will my successors. The Ministry of Justice deals with all justice issues, in conjunction with other criminal justice Ministers. The Ministry of Justice and the Home Office are engaged in fighting crime and protecting the public, and the two Departments will continue to work closely together to deliver that. Appropriate working arrangements will be put in place at official level to ensure that that happens, particularly on criminal law and sentencing policyareas in which the relationship between the two Departments will be vital. In addition, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has announced the creation of a new Cabinet Committee on criminal justice and crime policy, which he will chair, and on which my right hon. Friends the Home Secretary and the Attorney-General will sit. In addition, the Ministry of Justice has responsibility for the family and civil justice systems, which remain vital.
	In this first statement from the Ministry of Justice I want to address and set out our approach to penal policy. Copies of the document, Penal Policy: a background paper are available in the Vote Office and the Printed Paper Office. The Government have made significant progress in tackling crime since 1997. Over the past decade, according to the British crime survey, crime has fallen by 35 per cent. Offences brought to justice are up by nearly 40 per cent. since 2002. Ineffective trials have more than halved in the Crown court since 1997. Fine collection is at 91 per cent., up from 74 per cent. in 2003-04. The Government have continued throughout to rebalance the criminal justice system in favour of victims and the community.
	The creation of the Ministry of Justice offers a significant opportunity to build on that success with the following three-part programme. First, we will continue to protect the public by ensuring that we provide prison places for people whom the courts determine need custody. The Government have already built 20,000 new prison places over the past 10 years. That is an increase of 33 per cent., and those places were built faster than ever before. Some 8,000 further places will be built by 2012. We want to examine the question of how to modernise the estate to provide more cost-effective facilities that are better equipped to reduce reoffending. We also want to identify whether the resources in our estate can be used to finance new accommodation, whether that be new large state-of-the-art prisons, or smaller local provision for women and young offenders.
	My noble Friend the Secretary of State for Justice has asked Lord Carter of Coles to provide an assessment of the plans for the 8,000 prison places and of the longer-term issues affecting the estate, including the interrelationship between prisons and the rest of the Ministry of Justice estate, to ensure that we have a coherent strategy. Our prison building programme will therefore continue to ensure that we have capacity to lock away the most dangerous prisoners for as long as they are dangerous, and to enable sentencers to send people into custody whenever they think that that is required. The new indeterminate sentence for public protection is now in place, ensuring that the most dangerous prisoners are released only when it is safe for that to be done. Over 2,200 such sentences have been issued so far.
	The Government have always recognised that prison must be used for those who need it, and that sentences should be designed to reduce reoffending. However, over decades we have learned that some short custodial sentences are not effective in reducing reoffending. That is why we want greater use to be made of the best community sentences where evidence shows that they reduce reoffending and offer more effective punishment than custodial sentences of less than 12 months. Sentencing policy must support the use of our resources in such a way as best to protect the public, punish offenders and reduce reoffending. Prison should be used to protect the public to the extent and for the periods necessary to deliver the statutory aims of sentencing in accordance with the Criminal Justice Act 2003, with alternatives to custody used when they are more effective in reducing reoffending and providing payback to the community.
	We will ask the Sentencing Guidelines Council to review whether its guidelines fully reflect the principles set out in the 2003 Act. We will ask it, too, to look at its processes to ensure that it can operate in the way that it considers best enables it to produce effectively such guidelines as are necessary. We will ensure that where serious and dangerous offenders breach their licence conditions, the punishment is a swift return to custody, for as long as is necessary. For non-dangerous prisoners, we will propose new arrangements for them to be recalled to prison for 28 days. We propose, too, that suspended sentence orders should apply to more serious offences, as we originally intended when they were created in 2003, not to summary ones.
	Secondly, we need to increase confidence in community sentences and to support their greater use where they are more effective in reducing reoffending. Offenders will be required to undertake programmes to stop them reoffending, and training to equip them with the skills to get back into work. They will also be required to carry out unpaid work in their local community, organised by the best available providers, whether in the public sector or the private sectoror, indeed, in the voluntary third sector. They will be subject to packages to restrict their liberty and movements, to make them face up to the consequences of their actions, and to pay back to the communities that they have harmed. The individual being punished, the community, and the sentencer all have to understand that if the penalty is breached, punishment will follow, with custody if necessary. We will ensure that prison places are available for that purpose.
	Thirdly and finally, we will renew our commitment to delivering in line with the vision set out in the Carter report of December 2003, including end-to-end offender management and public service reform. There is excellence in the public, private and voluntary sectors in the delivery of prison and probation services, and we want to build on that to reduce reoffending further. In particular, that means commissioning the most effective interventions that will best support the management and rehabilitation of offenders, and making use of the fullest range of providers.
	I believe that my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State and the ministerial team present today have put in place the framework, the people, the programmes and the knowledge to make a massive difference to the way in which we deal with crime and protect the public in this country. We must make sure that that investment pays off. Above all, that means the right punishment, for the right length of time, for as long as necessary, with the right interventions and the right level of supervision for each offence to prevent reoffending. I commend the statement to the House.

Oliver Heald: I start by congratulating the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr. Hanson) on assuming his new duties after his spell in Northern Irelandseemingly quite a successful spell. I also congratulate the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Sutcliffe), who is responsible for prisons and has joined the team. I thank the Minister of State in the usual way for giving me early sight of his statement.
	The Opposition have repeatedly said that to put prisons and the courts into a single person's hands is potentially a recipe for constitutional crisis. The Lord Chancellor has tried cajoling judges about sentencing, and he has tried threatening them; now he will simply be able to dictate to them, on the basis that if too many people go to prison, the budget for the courts will be cut. The Lord Chancellor has a constitutional duty to uphold and protect the independence of the judges and the rule of law. However, it is now his Department that poses a threat to the judiciary.
	It is no surprise that on 29 March, when the Home Secretary announced that he was donating his problem areas to the new Department, it was the Lord Chief Justice himself who said:
	The announcement raises important issues of principle...Structures are required which will prevent the additional responsibilities of the new ministry interfering with...the independent administration...of the court service.
	A working group has been set up with the judges, but it is clear from the Minister's statement that agreement has not been reached. Will he tell us what areas of agreement there are regarding those important assurances, and what has not yet been agreed by that important working group? He must tell us, because it is absolutely vital that the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law is protected.
	The background to the statement is the continuing problem of prison overcrowding. The Lord Chief Justice also said that
	there is a risk that the new Ministry will be faced with a situation of recurrent crisis, or judges will be placed under pressure to impose sentences that they do not believe are appropriate.
	I believe that the word pressure puts it far too lightly. It was the Lord Chancellor himself who, when he was a Home Office Minister, said:
	it is unwise to comment on prisoner projections...as they always turn out to be inaccurate.[ Official Report, House of Lords, 2 June 2003; Vol. 648, c. 1046.]
	One thing is for sure: the Government have always underestimated the need for prison places, given their home affairs policies. Given that they have passed so many criminal justice Actsthere are now 3,000 extra offencesit is not surprising that they need more prison places. Everyone predicted that, yet the prison places to which the Minister referred were ordered in the time of John Major. We therefore need a bit more joined-up thinking from the Government.
	How can those duties be passed to what remains of the Department for Constitutional Affairsfrom one failing Department to another? The Magistrates Association says that it is impossible for magistrates courts to perform adequately at present. London's most senior county court judge, Judge Collins, described the county court as being in chaos. The verdict of the Constitutional Affairs Committee on the legal aid changes was that
	the Government has introduced these plans too quickly...with insufficient evidence.
	Who advised on those changes? Oh yes, it was Lord Carter. And what is his job now? He is going to review prisons. My goodness, the prisons should watch out.
	The Department for Constitutional Affairs was responsible for all those problems, and for electoral administration; it was the Department in charge of postal voting and electronic counting. Is it really right that these important functions should go from the Home Office to this failing Department?
	The last time the Lord Chancellor tried to encourage judges to keep the prison population down we ended up with a convicted sex offender being released on bail. What guarantee can the Minister give that proper safeguards will be put in place to protect the public? What sort of offences will no longer lead to short custodial sentences? What sort of offences will no longer attract suspended sentences? Are we really going to let off sexual offenders, shoplifters who are drug addicts, and people who have committed offences of violence such as assault occasioning actual bodily harm? On the recall of serious offenders, are we really saying on the one hand, Short custodial sentences are no goodthat is what the statement saidand on the other hand, Oh, but with serious criminals, we can recall them from licence for 28 days, which is a short custodial sentence? None of that adds up.
	The Minister said that he would ask the Sentencing Guidelines Council to review its guidelines, but why is he going to do that? Is it because he thinks that sentences are too long at the moment? What guarantee can he give that prisoners are not going to be released early from prison, as everyone expects? We have hundreds of prisoners in police cells. The prisons are full. It is the Government's fault, but what is the Prime Minister doing about it? He is moving the deckchairs on the Titanic. That is what the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) said. The Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the Lord Chancellor are here today and gone tomorrow. What assurance can the Minister give us that the Chancellor of the Exchequerthe new Prime Ministergoes along with any of this? And as for the Home Secretary, as so often, he is cutting and running, leaving a problem for someone elsetalking tough but leaving criminals on our streets.

David Hanson: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's welcome to me in my new position, following the success in Northern Ireland. I am grateful also for his welcome to the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Sutcliffe), who has done a sterling job in the Home Office on these issues.
	The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, East (Bridget Prentice), the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar (Vera Baird), the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) and my right hon. and noble Friend the Secretary of State are a new Department and a new team, taking work from the Home Office and from the Department for Constitutional Affairs and putting together a new Ministry of Justice to tackle the tasks that I hope the hon. Gentleman would want to tacklereducing reoffending, ensuring punishment for reoffenders, and ensuring that we make Great Britain a safer place for our constituents and our communities. That is the purpose of the Department, and if we are judged on it, my right hon. and hon. Friends will welcome that.
	The hon. Gentleman mentioned the judiciary. That is an important issue, and I know that there are concerns about that, from which I will not shy away. We have a statutory duty to ensure the independence of the judiciary, to ensure that it is funded properly, and to make sure that it is accountable to the House of Commons and another place. Let me reassure the hon. Gentleman that we will not shirk those statutory duties. We are willing to continue engagement with the judiciary. There will be discussions over the next few weeks. I assure the hon. Gentleman that that independence will not be compromised, nor will the resourcing. I hope that the judiciary have a shared objective with the Government to reduce offending and ensure the protection of our community.
	The hon. Gentleman spoke about prison places. During my party's term of governmentwhich, as I recall, now amounts to 10 yearswe have built 20,000 new prison places, and 8,000 prison places are planned between now and 2012 at a cost, through the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South, of some 1.7 billion-worth of capital expenditureexpenditure to which I doubt whether a Conservative Government would be able to commit, as they are committed to putting in place tax-cutting policies for the future. When HMP Kennet opens in June this year with 350 places, and when new prisons are opened at Belmarsh West, Maghull and Rochester in years to come, I will remind the House that they were paid for by the Government, whereas the hon. Gentleman's party opposed every cent, and would not have been able to deliver.
	There are issues to do with a range of mattersthe penal policy document is published todaybut I have every confidence that the Ministry of Justice team, under the Lord Chancellor, our Secretary of State in another place, will deliver to ensure that we reduce offending and provide greater protection for the public. I am willing to debate with the hon. Gentleman, on any occasion that he wishes, in a friendly and joyous manner, the effects of our penal policy on the prison population and on reoffending. Our job is not to put people in prison, but to discourage reoffending. I believe that the community sentencing that we have proposed today, and the extra prison places, will meet the needs of the public.

Keith Vaz: I warmly welcome the creation of the Ministry of Justice and the new ministerial team that has been assembled, and wish them well. However, I have two concerns. First, as regards the judiciary, I do not think that my right hon. Friend has dealt with the matter properly and adequately today. It is our unwritten constitution, not the Government, that is the guarantor of our liberties. Lord Woolf was very specific: he had deep concerns about what the Government were proposing. Has my right hon. Friend met Lord Woolf, and what has Lord Woolf said, subsequent to the decisions that have been made? As for the choice of Lord Carter of Coles for the prison inquiryhe was the man who completely mucked up our legal aid system. Putting him in charge of the prison system was the wrong decision. If that is what the Lord Chancellor is proposing to do on prisons, he is in for a rough ride.

David Hanson: I thank my right hon. Friend for his contribution. He will understand that having been appointed some 12 hours ago, I have not yet had the opportunity to meet Lord Woolf.

Keith Vaz: Why not?

David Hanson: My right hon. Friend will understand that on the first morning in office, we have important duties to undertake. I intend to meet the judiciary, as does my right hon. and noble Friend the Secretary of State. I am willing to engage in discussions with members of the judiciary over the next few weeks and months. I know that they are meeting next Tuesday or Wednesday to discuss their response to the proposals for the Ministry that were published today. I give my right hon. Friend the reassurance that I believe, as my right hon. and noble Friend will emphasise in another place this afternoon, that the judiciary is independent, will be safeguarded by the Department, and will be fully resourced. I know that there are concerns, and with my right hon. and hon. Friends I am happy to meet representatives of the judiciary over the next few weeks to discuss still further the concerns that they have. I hope they will share an agenda with us, and I hope and believe that in due course they will come to welcome the creation of the Ministry of Justice today.

Simon Hughes: On behalf of my colleagues, I welcome the government's interest over 10 years in improving the criminal justice system. We welcome the creation of the Ministry of Justice and we welcome the right hon. Gentleman and the the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Sutcliffe) to the team. Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that he and his colleagues will have to work hard to reassure the public that the decision to create the Ministry has been fully thought through, and in particular to explain how the constitutional and electoral matters fit comfortably in a Ministry of Justice dealing with justice and the criminal justice system?
	Can the Minister give an assurancethis picks up some of the questions that he has been asked alreadythat the new Ministry will have the resources that it needs for the jobs that it has to do? It needs money for the probation service and adequate money for the Prison Service, and must ensure that there are no cuts in courts that are needed around the country, in addition to the many that we have already, or further holding back of the money for legal aid, which has been hugely criticised, not least in the recent report of the Constitutional Affairs Committee, chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith). Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake to review the policy on legal aid, and take the advice from around the House that another contract with Lord Carter to do another job for the renamed Ministry will not add to anybody's confidence in the new team?
	On sentencing, there was a welcome recognition in the Minister's remarks that many short custodial sentences are not effective, and that community sentences are under-used. Can he tell us whether, when he introduces his new legal proposals for sentencing policy changes and for sentencing guidelines policy, sentences will in future mean what they say, which is what the public want above all? Do the Government accept, by implication, that their prison policy has failed? Either we have in England and Wales the most criminal population in western Europe, which I do not believe can intrinsically be the case, or there is no logical explanation for 80,000-plus prison places and building, because reoffending prisoners come back so often.
	Finally and importantlya topic picked up by the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald), on the Conservative Front Benchthere is a welcome commitment to the independence of the judiciary, who are not yet fully on board with the new plans. Can the Minister give an absolute pledge from the Front Bench that during his time in office and that of the Ministry, no Minister in any Department, including the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird), will criticise judges, and that they will be allowed to do their job free of political criticism by the Government of the day?

David Hanson: I am grateful for the support from the hon. Gentleman and the Liberal Democrat party. There is in many ways a synergy with the policy objectives that we seek, and I hope we can consider a range of sentencing options which will provide a greater menu for the judiciary to examine. One of the key issues that the hon. Gentleman alluded to was that of community-based sentencing. Yes, the objective in all this has to be punishment, and we need to have strong punishment even in community-based sentencing, but we need to have it with the objective of preventing reoffending. We must ensure that individuals learn from their experience in the community, get better trained, recognise, through reparation work, the damage that they have done, and return to the community as better citizens as a result.
	With regard to the financing of the Department, the hon. Gentleman will know that we are in the middle of a comprehensive spending review settlement. I can assure him that the resources from the Home Office and the DCA are there on the table for this year, as planned. Obviously, that will be subject to negotiation. However, he can take the reassurance that the Government are committed to reducing crime, and one of the main methods of doing so will be the work of my right hon. and noble Friend the Secretary of State and my other colleagues in the Ministry of Justice. I very much hope that the CSR settlement will reflect that.
	The hon. Gentleman said that we wish sentencing to mean what it says. Obviously, we want greater clarity in sentencing. There will be options to ensure that, as with indeterminate sentences, those who are a danger to the community spend longer in prison, until such time as they are deemed not to be a danger to the community. That is a solid basis for the policy.
	I take issue with the hon. Gentleman on the question of the Labour Government's failure on prison policy. I do not agree with his statement. We now have an option to look at a wider range of sentencing policies. The 20,000 prison places that have been built over the past 10 years and the 8,000 that are being built between now and 2012 will make a difference. However, at the heart of our whole criminal justice policy must be the objective of preventing reoffending.
	Lastly, let me say to the hon. Gentleman that I hope that I have made it clear to the House that the independence of the judges is paramount, and it is part of the role of a criminal justice Ministry to ensure that that independence is maintained. I can never give a blanket guarantee on the issues that he examined, but I would say that our role is to set a framework for a sentencing policy and a prison policy that prevents reoffending, while the judiciary's role is to interpret that on a case-by-case basis. I believe that they do a very good job in the vast majority of cases, and I look forward to working with them to prevent offending still further.

Andrew Miller: I warmly congratulate my right hon. Friend on his new appointment and on his success in his work in Northern Ireland. He knows that I have an interest in issues to do with local justice in my constituency and throughout Cheshire. He may not yet be aware of the close collaboration that I have had with the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Sutcliffe), over certain difficulties that we have faced locally. To enable us to get the maximum confidence of all the professionals and the judiciary, particularly the lay magistracy, as the new system beds down, will my right hon. Friend ensure that mechanisms are in place so that proper feedback can come from the people who practise on our behalf throughout the country at a local level? We do not want filter mechanisms that cut out the words of the people at the coalface; we want them to get their words directly to Ministers in positions of responsibility, such as himself.

David Hanson: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's support. We share a constituency borderalthough there is a large river in the middle of itand I know his constituency very well. I give him the assurance that through the proposals on the National Offender Management Service, which we are bringing forward as part of the Home Office responsibilities of my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South, we are trying to ensure that we increasingly involve the community in these decisions.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller) will know that we are looking to establish probation trusts in each of the probation areas and to ensure that we have community involvement in those trusts, as well as involvement from local authorities and elected officials. It will be rocky and difficult, but the potential is there to ensure that we have more community involvement in managing the probation service.
	Most of all, I want to ensure that when community reparation is undertaken by people through probation and community services, as it now is in my constituency in Flintshire in north Wales, the community is involved in determining those projects, seeing those reparations made, determining the priorities at a local level, and making it known to people who have committed offences that none the less, the work that they are doing is productive to society at large, and giving them back their self-respect. There are great opportunities there for my hon. Friend, and I welcome his comments.

Alan Beith: I welcome the two new Ministers, whom we look forward to questioning in the Select Committee on Constitutional Affairs. Why was this important constitutional change rushed through without any prior parliamentary discussion so that some of the concerns of the judiciary, for example, could have been resolved? That was surely the lesson to be learned from the last round of constitutional changes, which was suddenly sprung upon everybody and had to be modified subsequently. Given that there was no significant new policy on prisons in today's statement, would it not have been better to use this first opportunity to tell the House that the Government are rethinking the proposals that the Select Committee believes will seriously damage access to justice through legal aid?

David Hanson: I welcome the opportunity to go before the Select Committeealthough perhaps not today because we have enough on our plates, but certainly in the near future. I am sure that the Select Committee will do what it is supposed to do, namely, to hold Ministers to account and determine input into policy for the House as a whole. The right hon. Gentleman will know that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made a statement to Parliament, as did my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. These are machinery of government changes, as we have made clear. Time will tell how the Ministry of Justice beds in. He said that there is no new policy direction in my statement. I disagreethere are new policy nuances in the direction of policy on supporting reoffending reductions in the community. No doubt there will be a major opportunity to discuss those over the next few weeks and months.
	With regard to legal aid, the Under-Secretary, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar (Vera Baird), has taken a great deal of interest in that at the DCA and will continue to do so in the new Ministry of Justice. I am confident that the reforms will create a sustainable legal aid system for the future that is fair to clients, to the taxpayer and to practitioners. It will continue to be an integral part of the criminal justice system. I know that my hon. and learned Friend will also relish the opportunity to go before the Select Committee to have a nice friendly chat about those matters over a quiet glass of water.

David Burrowes: Is it not significant that while the first statement from the Ministry of Justice makes passing reference to the independence of the judiciary, the main thrust concerns penal policy, which may end up tying the hands of the judiciary?
	On drugs policy, will splitting the Home Office provide a co-ordinated and effective response to drugs enforcement and treatment, stem the tide of drugs flowing into our country and communitiesparticularly into our prisonsand provide the drugs treatment that our prisons and communities need and deserve?

David Hanson: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for highlighting a problem of which I think, even though I have been in post for only 12 hours, my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South is very well awaredrugs policy and how that affects prisoners. A large number of prisoners enter prison with drug problems and continue to have them, and we need to take strong action to help them through that. Unless we stop the drugs problem inside prisons, it will continue to drive crime levels in terms of feeding people's habit once they are outside and in the community. We have spent a considerable amount of resources on drug treatment. In fact, over our term in government there has been an increase of some 974 per cent. in spending on drug treatment through the criminal justice system, and we want to focus on that for the future.
	Although I am only 12 hours into the job, I do not hide from the fact that there is a very difficult issue as regards the prison population. With growing numbers of people in prison and a need to increase prison places, we need to look at how we manage the prison estate more effectively and stop people going to prison in the first place through reoffending. That is a big task for the Government to undertake, but the prison building programme and the changes in offending behaviour programmes that we have discussed today give us an opportunity to do so. I would welcome the hon. Gentleman's input because there is a common agenda for all parties in this House in ensuring that we protect the public and reduce reoffending.

Tobias Ellwood: The Minister said that he wanted to deliver a world-class justice system. However, we clearly do not have a world-class prison system. As my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) said, our prisons are not only full but spilling into our police cells. I saw that with my own eyes when I recently visited Dorchester prison, where not one single cell was spare. Will the Minister elaborate on the way in which we can prevent the dilution of sentencing? More important, when will police cells stop being used for the overflow from prison cells?

David Hanson: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's comments about the use of prison cells. Under Operation Safeguard, and through the Under-Secretary, we are implementing policies that we introduced in the days of the Home Office to ensure that we use police cells only as a last resort. Sadly, given the prison population, we have had to use them. In several places, police cells are used as temporary accommodation for prisoners. That is not ideal and I want the practice to be reduced and stopped. We need to take action on that.
	I believe that the twin approach of increasing proper prison placesas we are doing in HMP Kennet in June, and in Belmarsh West and in Maghull near Liverpool later this yearand considering community-based sentencing to reduce the number of people who go to prison, is important. Frankly, some people can be better served in terms of punishment and rehabilitation by not serving a prison sentence.
	I recognise the problem, which we need to tackle, and I understand the hon. Gentleman's concerns. I hope that, over time, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary and I can bring better news to the House.

James Brokenshire: I join other hon. Members in welcoming the right hon. Gentleman to his new role. I also welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Sutcliffe), with whom I have had some helpful and positive exchanges in the past few years, to his new position.
	The Minister said that the right interventions for offences were necessary. He highlighted the new Cabinet Committee and the new protections that will be introduced at official level for interlinking the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office. When the Lord Chancellor recently gave evidence to the Select Committee about the construction of the new Department, he suggested that it would cover new offences. We are expecting new provisions in the Session on violent offenders. Will the Ministry of Justice or the Home Office take the lead on that? If the answer is the Home Office, what role will the Ministry of Justice play in that context?

David Hanson: The new Department is responsible for criminal law in England and Wales and it will take measures on that through the House. That will involve discussions across government, through the Cabinet Committee chaired by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, about identifying the priorities for the Government. It will be up to the Home Office to implement existing legislation on policing and a range of similar issues. It will also be the Home Office's role to suggest, if it wishes, legislative options for the Ministry of Justice to consider. Our role is to consider criminal law, pilot criminal law measures through the House of Commons and win the House's support. The Home Office's role is to implement them in due course.

Shailesh Vara: I add my congratulations to the Ministers. Are the new community punishment arrangements that the Minister outlined his way of describing what is already in the Criminal Justice Act 2003, or does he propose yet more legislation?

David Hanson: Obviously, a considerable amount of activity is undertaken under the 2003 Act. The hon. Gentleman knows that, for example, unpaid work, supervision programmes, drug rehabilitation, alcohol treatment, mental health treatment, residencies, activities, prohibited activities, exclusion and curfew can all be tackled in the community. We want to consider how we can develop that to ensure that, when appropriateI stress when appropriateand when the punishment fits the crime, we expand the use of the mechanisms in the 2003 Act. We want to ensure that individuals feel punished, but also consider community reparation. To revert to the point that the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) made, we also want to prevent reoffending.
	In 2006, more than 35,000 items of unpaid work constituted sentences. Some 6.5 million hours of work to the value of 35 million were undertaken in the community. I want that to be expanded for the good of the community and to ensure the objectives that, I am sure, the hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Mr. Vara) and the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey seek: to punish the individuals responsible, but rehabilitate them in the long term.

Lady Hermon: After the Minister's enormously positive and enthusiastic contribution in the Northern Ireland Office, he will be sadly missed in Northern Ireland. However, I welcome him and all his team members to their new positions.
	The statement is interesting. Given that the new Ministry of Justice has at its heart the reduction of crime and reoffending, why does the statement say so little about the valuable work of the probation services? Does not the Minister believe that they are fit for the 21st century?

David Hanson: I am grateful for the hon. Lady's comments about my tenure in Northern Ireland. Not only willI hopeNorthern Ireland miss me, but I will certainly miss Northern Ireland. I had a productive and useful two years there and found the friendship and support of not only Members but the people of Northern Ireland welcome.
	Offender management and the probation service are key to delivering the objectives that we set in the overall context of the policy announced today. For that reason, I want the Offender Management Bill, which is currently in another place, to be carried in both Houses. I greatly regret the fact Opposition Members voted against it. I hope that they will realise its benefits and recognise that there is an agenda, which I know the hon. Lady shares, of reducing offending, making community-based sentences more appropriate and ensuring that we protect the public at large and reduce crime. The probation service has a key role to play in that and I know that I have the hon. Lady's support in trying to make that a success.

Point of Order

Alistair Carmichael: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Has the Speaker's Office received a request from the Department for Transport for a Minister to come to the House to make a statement about the growing crisis in the Maritime and Coastguard Agency? Yesterday, 81 per cent. of union members voted to take industrial action. For people in coastal and island communities, the coastguard is as important as the fire, police and ambulance services. I cannot believe that we would

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must not press his point of order too far. As he knows, strictly speaking it is not a point of order. The short answer to his question is no, but he has had the opportunity to place his concern on the record. I am sure that it will have been noted.

Copyright Term for Performers and Producers

Michael Connarty: I beg to move,
	That leave be given to bring in a Bill to extend the period of time over which royalties are payable to performers and producers of recorded material; and for connected purposes.
	Having met Lonnie Donegan's widow, Sharon, and their son Peter last week, it was suggested to me that I should begin the debate by reminding hon. Members of the words of Cumberland Gap, which was at the top of the hit parade in 1957 for five weeks. It runs:
	Cumberland Gap, Cumberland Gap,
	15 miles to the Cumberland Gap.
	It was suggested that the second line should be changed to, 50 years to the copyright gap. Uniquely, we have a position whereby people who record and produce music, which is a single creative actoften not repeated, despite the number of times people try to re-record the same tunesuffer a disproportionate imposition. After 50 years, their music can be taken, put on another CD or included in another collection, sold around the world, often with the revival selling more than the original, with nothing being paid to the recording artist, the producer, the band or the individual's family or estate.
	We are not talking about millionaire pop stars. I compliment Sharon Donegan, who opened the books to us. When Lonnie Donegan died aged 71 in 2002, his total estate amounted to 82,000. His income, which also meant that of his wife and children, ran to 30,000 to 40,000 a year from his royalties in a good year. We are talking not about millionaires, but about working musicians. In fact, the Musicians Union has done a detailed analysis and found that the average income from royalties for people who work in the music industryeven someone who may have been well known in their timeis about 15,000 a year, which is not a great deal.
	This debate is significant now because it is 50 years since many of the original rock and roll tunes were released. Lonnie Donegan recorded Rock Island Line in January 1957my preference over Cumberland Gapbut his family has received no money for it. Tommy Steele recorded Singing the Blues and had a hit with it. As a primary school pupil, when I went out for my Halloween, as they called it in Scotland, I had to give a performance to get my treat. It was not like it was in Americawhere it was trick or treat, but if they did not get a treat they smashed the windows or something like that. We had to sing and I learned Singing the Blues for my little treat because it was easier to sing than others.
	The late Adam Faith recorded, in the same year, What do you Want?. I think the line was, What do you want if you don't want money? Well, what we wantthe people who are supporting this Bill and those who signed the early-day motion, which now has 52 signaturesis equality, fairness and justice for those recording artists and producers. It is not just people such as Adam Faith, Tommy Steele and Lonnie Donegan who are affected. Lonnie Donegan's bandDenny Wright, John Nicholls and Mickey Ashmando not get anything like the amount of money that they should. Indeed, they get only a paltry sum compared with the main recording artists. Their company, Pye Recordswhich found and cultivated them, advanced their careers and recorded the musicalso lose out. We want equality, and the Bill is based on common sense.
	On a CD, or an LP as it used to be, the composer, the lyricist and even, believe it not, the photographer and the artwork designer enjoy copyright not just for 70 years, but for 70 years after their deaths. We are not asking for that sort of equality. We would settle for the same situation as that in the USA, where copyright is paid for 95 years. There are many sensible reasons for that, one being that it supports the musicians.
	As I said, 90 per cent. of musicians are not millionairesthey earn about 15,000 a year from their royalties. In the UK alone, 7,000 musicians will lose their rights to any payment for the recordings in the next 10 years. Some of them are very well known. In 1961-62 the Beatles came on the scene, but in four or five years' time many of their hits will stop being eligible for royalty payments. People may well say that that is fine because the Beatles are millionaires and can afford it, but that is not true of many of the people who recorded the strings in the studios, for example, or other recording artists. Indeed, whoever played the drums instead of Ringo Starr on the Beatles early recordsit is often said that he did not, in fact, play on themreceives only a pittance, and those records will soon cease to be eligible for royalties.
	The creative economy of this country is in serious danger. People are now twice as incentivised to record and release a record in America because the right to copyright for the company and the artists applies for 95 years. That makes it twice as intelligent, so to speak, to go to the USA to release a record than anywhere in the EU. That is why 40,000 musicians and 3,500 record companies signed a Phonographic Performance Ltd petition to improve the copyright terms in the UK to the same level as those in the USA. We have already lost some of our creative industry to America because of the mass culture, but our unique musical culture still rests in the independent record labels and is still to be harvested. We should not allow it to be taken from us.
	A PricewaterhouseCoopers study concluded, strangely enough, that irrespective of whether a recording is in or out of copyright, it has no impact on the price of the recording. It makes no difference whether people are making a cheap record or a more expensive first release, as the price of the recording is no different. There are massive disparities, of course, in the price that will be paid for the second releases and the compilations, which are not the unique set, as things are taken from here and there and the best parts are often missed out.
	We are trying to get the Government on side, which is why we want Parliament to show its support for the Bill. If Parliament supports it, the Government will, hopefully, have a stronger arm when they go to the EU. The matter will be decided in the EU and our group will go to Brussels to argue the case with Commissioner Charles McCreevy on 27 June. There is much to say, but much has already been said, particularly about the mistake in the Gowers report on intellectual property. It treated this unique creative effort the same way as if someone had invented a chemical that would have a shelf life and then something new would be invented to take its place.
	As a jazz lover, I know that it is possible to hear two unique versions of the same song. There is the version of Gerry and the Pacemakers' You'll Never Walk Alone that has been stolen by the fans on the terraces, but if we listen to Nina Simone singing it as a blues song, we realise that the same music with a different time frame and different singer is a unique experience. I think that Gowers missed that point, because a song cannot be replaced by someone recording it later. My particular favourite recordings of the Bruch and Mendelssohn minor key symphonies are by someone called Grumiaux, a Belgian who recorded in the 1950s. I have three or four versions, but none of them compares with that. That is the uniqueness that we are talking about, which should be paid for, for at least the lifetime and beyond of the recording artist.
	Debates took place in the House on 17 May 2006, when the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) participated, and on 10 March 2007, when the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) and my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, North-West (John Robertson) took part. I direct anyone who wants to know why they should support my Bill to those two debates, which developed the theme more fully.
	The Bill is not an attack on those who say that music should be cheap and accessible to everyone to download on the internet. It is not about that, as we want that too, but we also want the money to go back into the pockets of the recording artists, producers and companies. We want the companies to be incentivised to record and release music in the EU and to spend more money looking for talent in the UK and the EU. If the Bill goes through and we persuade the EU to move forward on it, we would want certain conditions to be attached.
	What we are saying is that the copyright gap should be filled. We want the Bill passed and Parliament to tell the Minister to go to Europe to argue for fairness and equality on behalf of the creative industry of this country. It is crucial to argue for fairness in respect of these unique UK recordings of 50 years ago and also for those in the future.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	Bill ordered to be brought in by Michael Connarty, Mr. Bob Blizzard, Peter Luff, John Robertson, Nigel Griffiths, Derek Conway, Mr. Tom Clarke, Bob Russell, Alan Keen, Rosemary McKenna, John Hemming and Pete Wishart.

Copyright Term for Performers and Producers

Michael Connarty accordingly presented a Bill to extend the period of time over which royalties are payable to performers and producers of recorded material; and for connected purposes: And the same was read First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 29 June, and to be printed [Bill 101].

PARLIAMENT (JOINT DEPARTMENTS) BILL  [LORDS]

Order for Second Reading read.
	 Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 90(1) (Second reading committees), That the Bill be referred to a Second Reading Committee. [Huw Irranca-Davies.]
	 Question agreed to.

Orders of the Day

UK Borders Bill

As amended in the Public Bill Committee , considered.

New Clause 9
	  
	Search for evidence of nationality: other premises

'(1) This section applies where an individual
	(a) has been arrested on suspicion of the commission of an offence, and
	(b) has not been released without being charged with an offence.
	(2) If, on an application made by an immigration officer or a constable, a justice of the peace is satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for believing that
	(a) the individual may not be a British citizen,
	(b) nationality documents relating to the individual may be found on premises specified in the application,
	(c) the documents would not be exempt from seizure under section 44(2), and
	(d) any of the conditions in subsection (3) below applies,
	the justice of the peace may issue a warrant authorising an immigration officer or constable to enter and search the premises.
	(3) The conditions are that
	(a) it is not practicable to communicate with any person entitled to grant entry to the premises;
	(b) it is practicable to communicate with a person entitled to grant entry to the premises but it is not practicable to communicate with any person entitled to grant access to the nationality documents;
	(c) entry to the premises will not be granted unless a warrant is produced;
	(d) the purpose of a search may be frustrated or seriously prejudiced unless an immigration officer or constable arriving at the premises can secure immediate entry.
	(4) Sections 28J and 28K of the Immigration Act 1971 (c. 77) (warrants: application and execution) apply, with any necessary modifications, to warrants under this section.
	(5) In the application of this section to Scotland a reference to a justice of the peace shall be treated as a reference to the sheriff or a justice of the peace.'. [Joan Ryan.]
	 Brought up, and read the First time.

Joan Ryan: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
	Government new clause 10 Police civilians.
	Government amendments Nos. 23 to 26.

Joan Ryan: I should like to preface my remarks on new clauses 9 and 10 and Government amendments Nos. 23 to 26 by noting that we had a productive and thorough debate on these matters in Committee. This group of amendments is one of the results of that. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) for his scrutiny in Committee of the search for evidence of nationality clause. New clause 9 is designed to address a concern raised in one of the amendments that he tabled in Committee, as I am sure he has recognised.
	I should like to emphasise the importance of the power to search for nationality documents, which will assist in ascertaining or confirming the nationality of persons in order to consider cases liable for deportation. This is part of our plan for improving the effectiveness of handling foreign nationals in the criminal justice system. Concerns were raised in Committee that nationality documents might be held on premises other than those set out in clause 43for example, those belonging to friends or family, or to persons involved in illegal immigration or illegal working.
	The effect of the amendments, in addition to the existing clauses, will be that immigration and police officers will have the power to search premises occupied or controlled by the person, premises where the person was arrested, or premises where the person was immediately before being arrested; and to search for and seize relevant documents, so that the person's nationality may be established at an earlier stage of their entering the criminal justice system than at present. Immigration and police officers will also be able to obtain a warrant to search other premises, if they believe that documents relating to the person might be found there.

Paul Rowen: What steps are being taken to ensure that this new power will not be misused, particularly in cases involving people who are here for a legitimate reason? I am worried about the effect that its over-use could have on community relations.

Joan Ryan: That is an important point, and we have taken some considerable time and effort to think through the safeguards, which I will come to in a moment. I want to reassure all communities that this legislation will be used fairly and for the benefit of all, and not in a disproportionate manner. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will remember that our debate on this question in Committee, which was identified by the hon. Member for Ashford, centred on the proportionate nature of the power. That is why we are now introducing the need to obtain a warrant to search more widely than was allowed in the original clause. Such a warrant will be required to search other premises where it is believed that documents relating to the person might be found. That should ensure that people do not place relevant documents in someone else's safe keeping in order to avoid their being seized. We did not want inadvertently to create an incentive to avoid detection in that way by leaving the clause as it was.
	Safeguards have been put in place to prevent misuse, and I shall give the hon. Gentleman some details. For example, when applying for a warrant, an immigration officer or constable must specify to the magistrate the grounds on which the application is being made, the provision under which the warrant is to be issued, the premises that they wish to search, and the articles for which they are searching. The warrant must specify the name of the person applying for it, the date of issue, the premises to be searched, the provision under which it is to be issued, and the articles being sought.
	Warrants issued under this provision will authorise entry on one occasion only, and will be valid for one month. Entry and search must be undertaken at a reasonable hour, unless it appears to the officer executing them that the purpose of the search might be frustrated by so doing. The immigration officer or constable must identify themselves to the occupier of the premisesor, in his absence, to another person who appears to be in charge of the premisesand produce identification, show the occupier the warrant and supply him with a copy of it. In the absence of anyone appearing to be in charge of the premises, the warrant should be left in a prominent place on the premises.
	A search under such a warrant may be undertaken only to the extent required for the purpose for which the warrant was issued. A warrant must be endorsed, stating whether the object of the search was found and whether anything else was seized. Warrants, whether they have been executed or not, must be returned to the issuing court and retained for 12 months, during which time they will be available for inspection by the occupier of the premises.
	I should like to give the House some reassurance on another issue that was raised in Committee, relating to the guidance and training that will be available. Instructions will be issued to immigration and police officers on when the powerwith and without warrantshould be used. The guidance will take account of the nationality pilot that is being conducted in three charging areas. Hon. Members will be aware, as we have discussed this matter before, that immigration officers will be arrest trained. Matters relating to good communication with the police, to contamination and to other important issues that need to be taken into account are part of the training that immigration officers undergo. This measure, as applied to immigration officers and the police, will lead to greater and better communication.

Paul Rowen: I am grateful to the Minister for the safeguards that she has just outlined. What monitoring and reporting arrangements relating to the use of this power are to be put in place?

Joan Ryan: The hon. Gentleman will be aware, from our debates in Committee, of the role of the inspectorate. He will also know that many of the issues relating to the identification of nationality are covered by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984PACEcodes. If immigration or police officers want to conduct a search without a warrant, they have to ensure that they have the authority of a senior officer to do so. I should also like to draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to the two or three pilots that we are undertaking into the use of these powers. The feedback from those pilots will be important when we consider further the issues that he has raised.

Stewart Hosie: New clause 9, when applied to Scotland, will require a sheriff or a justice of the peace to be involved in the issuing of a warrant, and that is right and proper. The Minister mentioned the PACE codes, which are mentioned in clause 44, which is the subject of an amendment in this group. Clause 44(5) refers to provisions for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. There is no reference, however, to the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995, which details how seized information and evidence should be treated. Should such provisions be included in the Bill, just as similar provisions were recently incorporated into Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs officers' powers in relation to seizures? Is it an oversight that they have not been included?

Joan Ryan: As the hon. Gentleman says, the PACE codes apply to England and Wales. He might know that we are seeking to change the code of practice in relation to code C, which covers the police being able to ask the nationality of a person who has been taken into custody when it is unclear whether they are a UK citizen. It was in that sense that I referred to the PACE codes. I have already talked about all the checks and balances that will apply to the proposed power. In regard to the hon. Gentleman's question about Scottish legislation, however, I undertake to write to him with the details.
	Having given the House those reassurances, I hope that hon. Members will be able to accept the new clauses and amendments.

Damian Green: I should like to thank the Minister for the kind remarks that she made at the beginning of her speech. We welcome the thrust of the new clauses and amendments. We made an effort in Committee to ensure that the Bill would have a practical effect and make a significant difference to the practice of immigration control, and to the enforcement of the important laws in this area. That was the intention behind our various amendments to that part of the Bill.
	I am glad that Ministers have reflected further and turned our amendments into the new clauses under consideration this afternoon. Not only is that good for the Bill and for the practice and enforcement of immigration control, but it represents a small victory for scrutiny by the House of Commons, which is much abused. It is a textbook example of how scrutiny can work, and of how the Committee stage can improve a Bill in small but important ways, if Ministers are flexible enough to take on board arguments made in good faith by Opposition parties.
	I would like the Minister to return to one detail. Although she has rightly emphasised the issue of proportionality of responseand she has talked a lot about the safeguards over the past few minutesshe said previously that our amendment was unnecessary and potentially disproportionate under article 8 of the European convention on human rights, especially in relation to widening the power to enter and search premises for relevant documents. We suggested expanding the scope of the provision to cover any other premises, to ensure that those searches were as effective as possible. Clearly, that is an extremely serious consideration for Ministers to take on board. Will she therefore reassure the House that the powers in the new clauses do not in any way breach article 8 of the ECHR, and explain why they do not?
	With that one potential caveat about the new clausesas I said, they grew out of amendments that we tabled in Committeewe welcome their inclusion in the Bill.

Paul Rowen: Like the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green), I welcome the revised amendments submitted by the Minister, notwithstanding her detailed explanation about the safeguards and operation of the Bill.
	In that regard, I have a question about the role of the chief inspector of the Border and Immigration Agency. If there is concern about an immigration officer's pursuit of such searches, is it correct that the chief inspector can refuse to co-operate with, say, Her Majesty's inspectorate of prisons, the Independent Police Complaints Commission or other bodies that might be concerned about the operation of the clause? I have no objection to the use of the provision; it is important that the powers that officers have are clearly laid out. As I mentioned, however, I am concerned about the effect on community relations, which is why I asked about monitoring. If there are concerns, is it true that the chief inspector will be able to block any investigation?

Joan Ryan: The hon. Member for Ashford is right that the European convention on human rights was discussed in relation to the proportionality of the legislation. As I understand it, the amendment that he tabled would have extended the powers sought by the clause then in the Bill. The introduction of the seeking of a warrant helps to satisfy the requirement to protect people's rights under the legislation. We are satisfied that the new clauses and amendments are compatible with the convention.
	It was interesting to consider the examples given in relation to the new clauses and amendments. Of course, police already have powers to deal with the criminal offence outlined by the hon. Gentleman. The provision is about the seeking of documents relating to nationality, in order to effect removal and deportation at the appropriate time. With regard to that analysis, he had a point. We wished to address that, not leave a loophole in what we all agree is necessary legislation, or create an incentive for people to hide their documents with family, friends and so on. Although the majority of documents are found on the premises where the person is arrested, or on premises under the person's control, we recognise the possibility of creating a perverse incentive for those documents to be stashed away somewhere else, so we wish to extend the powers. Given the analysis that we have undertaken, there is no question but that extending the safeguards to include the seeking of a warrantwhich does not apply to the powers to search the premises where the person is found or premises under the person's controlsatisfies the requirements.
	In response to the question of the hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Rowen), the chief inspector will have oversight of Border and Immigration Agency activity, and will therefore oversee immigration officers exercising powers. The IPCC will oversee the police. I hope that that clarifies the relationship, but I can write to the hon. Gentleman in more detail if he still has concerns. I thank both hon. Gentlemen, and my hon. Friends, for their support for the measures.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 10
	  
	Police civilians

'In Part 2 of Schedule 4 to the Police Reform Act 2002 (c. 30) (powers exercisable by police civilians: investigating officers) after paragraph 18 (entry and search after arrest) insert
	Entry and search for evidence of nationality after arrest
	18A Where a designation applies this paragraph to any person
	(a) sections 43 to 44 of the UK Borders Act 2007 (entry, search and seizure after arrest) shall apply to that person (with any necessary modifications) as if a reference to a constable included a reference to that person, and
	(b) a provision of the 1984 Act which applies to constables in connection with any of those sections shall apply (with any necessary modifications) to that person.'. [Joan Ryan.]
	 Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 1
	  
	Deportation orders: provision of information

'The Secretary of State shall comply with any request for information from the victim of an offence about a deportation order made under the provisions of section 31(5) in respect of the person convicted of that offence.'. [Mr. Kidney.]
	 Brought up, and read the First time.

David Kidney: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:
	No. 34, in page 16, line 6 Clause 31, leave out from 'whom' to end of line and insert 'the condition under subsection (2) applies.'.
	No. 35, in page 16, leave out lines 7 to 13 and insert
	'(2) The Condition is that, in the opinion of the sentencing judge, there is no public interest or other lawful reason why the person should remain in the United Kingdom.'.
	No. 15, in page 16, line 7, leave out 'of at least 12 months'.
	No. 8, in page 16, line 12, after 'criminal)', insert
	'or is an immigration offence under the Immigration Acts'.
	No. 2, in page 16, line 37 Clause 32, leave out 'conviction' and insert 'the offence'.
	No. 14, in page 17, line 32 Clause 33, leave out from 'requires' to end of line 33 and insert 'the Secretary of State to
	(a) make a deportation order no less than one month before the end of the individual's sentence, and
	(b) ensure the deportation of an individual against whom a deportation order has been made occurs not more than six months after the making of the order.'.
	No. 9, in page 19, line 21 Clause 37, leave out subsection (1).
	No. 10, in page 19, line 23, leave out paragraphs (a) and (b).
	Government amendments Nos. 17 to 22 and 27.

David Kidney: New clause 1 is grouped with a large number of amendments, none of which I tabled, so I shall leave their explanation to others.
	New clause 1 sets out a simple proposition: when foreign nationals are deported because they have committed relevant crimes, their victims should be entitled to know about the deportation. In the Bill as amended in Committee, clause 31 provides for what the heading calls Automatic deportation. At its most basic, my argument is that if the deportation is automatic, what is the problem in telling the victim that it has happened?
	The truth, however, is that not every foreign national convicted of an offence and sent to prison will be deported. For some offences, there will be a sentence of less than 12 months, which will not trigger the power. Clause 32 provides for a number of exceptions that will mean that others will not be deported. To my mind, the fact that, in some instances, uncertainty remains as to whether a deportation will take place strengthens the case for victims to know what has happened. I want to illustrate that argument with reference to the constituency case that first attracted my interest in the issue.
	In 2005, a young female adult was walking home from work on a Saturday night. She was followed by a man for two miles until she was in a road where no one else was about. There she was brutally raped. The offender was arrested. He was a foreign national. He was tried and convicted, and the judge, sentencing him to six years in prison, said that he had shown absolutely no remorse. It was at that point that I was asked by my constituent's family to find out whether the offender would be deported from prison.
	The young female was understandably suffering not just physical but mental trauma because of her experiences. She wanted to know whether there was any risk at all that the offender might one day be back on the streets where she lives. For her that is an ever-present, uncomfortable thought. I was quite willing to help to try to put her mind at rest.
	I wrote to Home Office Ministers several times to find out about the fate of the foreign national in prison. To my surprise, they responded each time that they could not disclose any information to me. Here is a typical response, in a letter dated 22 August last year:
	As you will appreciate, Home Office records relating to individual overseas nationals are confidential and information from them can only be disclosed to the subject or his appointed representative. This is in accordance with the Home Office's legal obligations under common law, human rights, data protection and the Code of Practice on Access to Government information. Unfortunately, the Home Office has not received any written confirmation from
	the offender
	that
	the victim
	can be treated as such.
	For obvious reasons, I have omitted the names of the two people involved.
	My response to being told that the offender had the right to block the victim's access to information that she wants only because of the offender's wrongdoing was that it offended my sense of what was right. I double-checked the Home Office's stance by tabling a parliamentary question, believing that an hon. Member asking a parliamentary question would be entitled to information about the deportation. Once again, however, my request was stonewalled, as can be seen at column 1044W of the 16 October edition of  Hansard.
	Not wishing to give up, I spoke in the debate on the Queen's Speech on 23 November 2006, again raising the specific case of my constituent and the point of principle about access to information for victims. That can be seen at column 780 of  Hansard. The Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality, my hon. Friend the. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr. Byrne), who is in the Chamber today, responded sympathetically, and I subsequently corresponded with him on the subject. However, his reply also relied on human rights and data protection as reasons for his inability to provide the information.
	After my contribution to the debate on the Queen's Speech, I learned that I was not alone in experiencing this difficulty. Other Members, and indeed journalists, contacted me about many similar stories. Obviously my research has not been extensive or systematic, but it has left me with the impression that just beneath the surface the problem experienced by my constituent and by me is a common one. That, surely, is a very undesirable state of affairs.
	New clause 1 is an attempt to give the Home Office parliamentary authority to break through the obstacles and give victims information to which I believe they should be entitled. In recent years, we have legislated to give more entitlements to victims. The Domestic Violence, Crimes And Victims Act 2004 enables victims of some sexual offences, for instance, to obtain information from the probation service about licence and supervision conditions when an offender is released from prison. New clause 1 is an attempt to nudge the law slightly further in favour of relevant information for victims, in this case on whether a foreign national has been deported.
	In a written statement on 23 May 2006, the present Home Secretary said:
	My first priority has been to protect the public.[ Official Report, 23 May 2006; Vol. 446, c. 77WS.]
	It is worth recalling that at that time the deportation of foreign nationals who had committed serious offences in the United Kingdom was a topic of intense public interest. In part at least, the furore arose because the record keeping of the Home Office and its agencies was not very good. Perhaps if there were more openness, and more access and exposure to public scrutiny of these matters, there would be fewer problems of this kind. I hope the Minister will tell us what arrangements he envisages in the context of the deportation power in clause 31, not just in respect of access to information about deportation for victims, but in respect of what information Parliament and individual Members should have.
	There are victims of serious crimes who have a legitimate interest in knowing whether a deportation, as directed by clause 31, has indeed taken place. For the sake of those victims and, indeed, for the sake of the public's confidence in our laws, it is in the public interest for the information specified in new clause 1 to be given to those victims. In weighing the interests of the offender and the victim, surely we should give the victim's rights the higher priority. For those reasons, I urge the Minister to respond positively to new clause 1.

Damian Green: I shall concentrate mainly on the four amendments tabled in my name, but let me first comment on what was said by the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney), who made a powerful case.
	When the rights of the victim are balanced against those of the offender, it is clear that the victim's rights should come first. I am sure the Minister agrees with that, butcoming fresh to the matterI am puzzled by the response that the hon. Gentleman received from the Home Office, which told him that owing to a number of legal restrictions his constituent could not have the required information.
	Given that we have been through a phase during which the Government were prepared to circulate posters and leaflets about hooligans who had received antisocial behaviour orders, and were making a virtue of naming and shaming people who were guilty of what I suspect were, in this context, relatively minor offences, and given that anyone who will be subject to deportation under the Government's proposals must have been convicted of an offence and been in prison for more than 12 monthsand must therefore have been convicted of a very serious offenceI feel that the hon. Gentleman made a good case for the new clause, or a similar measure. We need an appropriate balance that gives more weight to the victim's rights than the current arrangement as explained to him by the Home Office. I hope that the Minister, who will have seen the new clause on the amendment paper for some time, will be able to respond positively to his hon. Friend.
	Amendment No. 8 would add to those considered for automatic deportation people who have committed immigration offences. As it stands, the Bill provides for what it calls automatic deportation, but I think it was widely agreed in Committee that that is a misnomer. It is automatic deportation except when it is not automatic, and that means a huge number of exceptions. The deportation provision applies to foreign prisoners who are sentenced to more than 12 months in jail, yet the Bill itself sets the punishment at 51 weeks for the new immigration offences that it creates. That means that anyone committing an offence under the terms of the Bill would not be subject to the part of it that provides for what it calls automatic deportation, which strikes me as perverse. It is not credible that a Bill that purports to protect our borders excludes from its own provisions automatic deportation of those who commit serious crimes against immigration officials and those who seek to enter this country illegally.
	As it stands, the Bill sabotages its own effects. I am sure that the Minister will say, as he did in Committee, that a dim view will be taken of people discovered in the UK illegally and that the chances of their being allowed to stay will be limited. However, the Opposition believe that a strong message needs to be sent: We will stop you if you try to come to this country illegally, but if we cannot we will catch you and send you away again quickly.
	Previous mistakes in that regard are the main cause of problems in the entire immigration system. The number of asylum seekers has dropped considerably in recent years, mainly because of the endthankfullyof wars on the continent of Europe, but there is a huge overhang in the system, which is one of the main problems the Government face. We want to prevent anything similar from happening in the future, if there should againGod forbidbe large-scale movements of refugees across Europe, which would inevitably end up with hundreds of thousands of people coming to this country, as we have found in the past. That is the purpose of amendment No. 8.
	Amendment No. 14 would require the Secretary of State to make a deportation order at least one month before the end of a prisoner's sentence and would provide for that person to be deported within six months of the order being served. The Minister assured us at earlier stages of the passage of the Bill that he had the right systems and manpower to ensure that the deportation system would work better in future than it has in the past. He said that resources in what was the IND and is now the BIAthe immigration and nationality directorate and the Border and Immigration Agency for those who are not keeping up with the fast-moving world of Home Office acronymshad increased tenfold over the past year.
	The amendment is designed to probe whether the Home Office's systems will ensure the deportation of the individuals it wants to deport, precisely because the scandal that cost the still immediately previous Home Secretary his job arose in part because of the inability of the Home Office, the Prison Service and other agencies to communicate and work together to get serious criminals, out of the country. One fears that with the split in the Home Office, which we discussed in previous business today, those communication problems are likely to get worse, as the Prison Service has been even further removed from the ambit of the immigration service. The situation will certainly not get better and it may get worse, so the need for the amendment is even more urgent now than when we discussed it a few weeksago in Committee. The amendment would ensurethat arrangements were already in progress when an individual neared his or her release date, to make the whole process smoother and more efficient.
	Amendments Nos. 9 and 10 and Government amendments Nos. 17 to 22 relate to exemptions from automatic deportation and share a common interest. We want to achieve the same things. At present, people who have been handed a suspended sentence are exempt even if they serve some of the sentence, and the amendments would close that loophole. We wanted to delete subsection (1) of clause 37 in its entirety, but the Government want to do that in another way.
	I am sure the Minister agrees that if a person is handed a suspended sentence he has committed a crime of some seriousness in the first instance. The suspended sentence is activated only when somebody is in trouble for a second time and is, therefore, by definition a repeat offender, so it seems entirely reasonable to us that such a person should have the hospitality of this country withdrawn from them. I am glad that the Government have once again shown flexibility in the wake of the discussions in Committee and that they agree with us on that point.
	I hope that the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) will speak to his amendment No. 2, which also deals with exemptions from automatic deportation. Under clause 32, people are exempt if they are under 18 when convicted and, as I understand the right hon. Gentleman's amendment, he wants to focus on the date of the offence rather than the date of conviction. I have a degree of sympathy with Ministers on that point, as clearly they need to select one event as the cut-off point for the exemption. None of the options is perfect, but the advantage of using the date of the offence is that it will seem fairer. Justice can occasionally take a long time, so it is not difficult to imagine a situation where two 17-year-olds might commit a crime on the same day but one might be deported because his case took longer to get to court and he had passed his 18th birthday, while someone committing the same crime on the same day would be allowed to stay in the UK because he received justice more quickly. Such a hypothetical situation is not difficult to imagine; nor is it difficult to imagine that the public would find it somewhat unfair.

David Davies: But does my hon. Friend not agree that one down is better than none down at all, and that we are better off getting rid of at least one prolific offender? Most people would find that a better solution all round.

Damian Green: It is an unarguable fact that treating one offender properly is better than nobody being treated properly, but I hope my hon. Friend agrees that everyone being treated fairly by the law should be our aim when passing legislation in the House, so that all offenders know that what is coming to them is the same punishment as for those who commit equivalent offences.
	I have a deal of sympathy for the amendment and I shall be interested to hear the counter-arguments the Minister deploys against it, if indeed he does so. I know that the hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Rowen) wants to speak to amendments Nos. 34 and 35, so I shall let him do so before commenting further.

Neil Gerrard: I want to comment briefly on the new clause moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney), which is about people obtaining information.
	There are good reasons why we have data protection legislation and why third parties are not normally given access to information under that legislation. In general, it is right that the legislation applies. I am familiar with the type of problem to which my hon. Friend referred and have seen a significant number of such cases, although they do not always involve criminal offences. A common situation might be that a marriage has broken up less than two years before an application for indefinite leave to remain was granted and a constituent claims that the person they left was violent and subjected them to harassment. Often, no criminal offence is committed in such cases so it can be difficult to decide whether information should be released, because when someone approaches us in such circumstances we inevitably hear only one side of the story. We might have an opinion on how valid that side of the story is, but we are only hearing one side of the story.
	I have handled cases similar to those described by my hon. Friend. Recently, a constituent I was dealing with had separated from her husband who had been violent. He had then been convicted of a sexual offence elsewhere in the country. He had also been subjecting her family to considerable harassment after the marriage broke down. In my opinion, we should have got rid of him as quickly as possible. However, we ran into the problem of not being able to get information about what was happening to him and whether he was going to be deported.
	As my hon. Friend said, we will not necessarily always get the result that the constituent wantsthe other person being removed. However, whether or not they are removed it is common sense that the victim ought at least to have information on that. Has the person been subject to a deportation order? Has that order been signed? Has it been put into effect? If that has happened, it will give the victim some peace of mind. If for some reason it has not been possible to deport the convicted person, at least the victim will know that and can, if necessary, take whatever precautions they think are reasonable to try to avoid coming into contact again with the criminal.

Stewart Hosie: The examples given are all very familiar. In some such circumstances, the assailant and the victim are married. In many cases, the victimusually a womanis also the assailant's sponsor for being in the United Kingdom in the first place. Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that in such circumstances at the very leastwhere there is a clear locus in addition to someone being the victim of a crime, subject to the other person being convicted of thatinformation about deportation should be provided?

Neil Gerrard: That is a common scenario, but I can think of situations in which it would be difficult to give out such information. There might not have been a criminal charge. The person might not have been convicted. A constituent might come to their MP with allegations about someone's behaviour but the police have not been involved and there has not been a conviction. In such circumstances, we hear only one side of the story. We might well believe it, but there has been no conviction.
	However, we are currently talking about people who have been convictedand of serious offences. The new clause does not ask for wide, generalised information to be given. It does not ask for information to be given about anything other than the deportation order itself. That is worth considering. Even if the Minister feels that the new clause as it stands is not appropriate and that what is needed are changes to existing legislationperhaps to data protection legislationI hope that he will look into the matter.
	We are discussing narrow but clearly defined circumstances. I and other Members have dealt with constituents who have been very distressed when they have been the victim of a serious crime and it is not possible for them to know what is happening to the individual who committed it. We should contrast their situation with that of someone who has been a victim of crime in other circumstances and who would be able to get some informationwho would know if someone were to be released on parole, for example. I hope that the Minister will look into this matter.

John Hemming: I rise to support amendments Nos. 34 and 35, on which we hope to have an opportunity to vote at a later stage. Perhaps one of the biggest issues with automatic deportation is that, in the Bill, automatic deportation is not automatic deportation. The key question about the processes whereby somebody goes through a criminal conviction and then ends up at some stage being deported is this: at what stage should the judicial consideration of the merits of the case for deportation occur? We have strongly argued that that should happen at an early stage. We argue that the court of first instance at which the decision is taken about whether someone is guilty and what sentence they should receive should also be the point at which it should be decided whether they ought to be deported. The Government's alternativehaving failed previously to execute judicial recommendations for deportationis for the Home Secretary still to decide whether certain exemptions apply. As a consequence, the decision will be subject to judicial review. Because it will be subject to judicial review, there will be a stay of deportation proceedings until the judicial review has occurred.
	Therefore, rather than the judicial consideration occuring right at the start, it happens at the end of the process. Therefore, we can envisage a prisoner being released because judicial review proceedings have been initiated and wandering off somewhere. The judicial review proceedings then continue and it is decided that there is no case to answer, but the person concerned has been released. That is absurd. Even if the Conservative party's recommendation for deportation decisions to be taken at least a month before the end of the sentence is accepted, we could end up with people being released and there being a stay of proceedings. With no deportation, violent criminals could be allowed to wander the streets when they should have been deported.
	It is clear that these issues should be dealt with at the start. Some offences that result in imprisonmentsuch as not paying council tax, stealing electricity, or not attending probation meetingsdo not make someone a major threat to society. If someone has been living in the country for 30 years, we would not expect them to be deported for not going to a meeting or not paying council tax. That would not be reasonable.

David Davies: The hon. Gentleman must be aware that nobody has been sentenced to more than 12 months in prison for not paying council tax. Therefore, the situation he describes is very unlikely to arise. No more than a handful of people each year are convicted of stealing electricity, and I am sure that the sentences for doing so are extremely light and of less than 12 months.

John Hemming: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the current wording of clause 31. Obviously, some cases are covered that do not have a 12-month sentence applied. Suspended sentences are applied in some circumstances. It would be useful if the hon. Gentleman did a little more research on sentences.
	We are saying not that criminals should not be deported under certain circumstances, but that judicial consideration should happen at the start of the process. That deals with one of the points of the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney), in that at that stage the victim is involved in the criminal process. It is at that stage that it should be decided whether it is appropriate to deport someone. There is no disagreement in this House that someone who comes to this country and goes about causing all sorts of problems, involving violence, for examplethe situation in which the victim is the sponsor is a good exampleshould be subject to deportation. The question is: what is a firm but fair and effective way of doing that? The Government have failed to be effective in the past. We are simply saying that this decision should be taken by the initial court.

Damian Green: I am not sure that that solves the good point of the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney). A Judge might decide in the first instance that someone should be deported, but during the period of the prison sentence, the country to which he ought to be deported became so dangerous that he could not be deported there. Things might be even worse in the current situation in which someone might get a letter saying X will be deported but they are not deported. I am not sure that this problem has been addressed.

John Hemming: I accept that our suggestion only partially addresses that, in that the victim will be involved in the initial process and in the decision-making process as to whether someone should be deported.
	There is a good argument in favour of new clause 1. As things stand, without new clause 1, there would be so-called automatic deportation as a result of some serious offence. A decision then would be taken by the Home Secretary as to whether that satisfies certain exemptions, and that would then be subject to judicial review, but the victim would not even know that a judicial review had gone through. Therefore, someone would be released from prison and be free to move anywhere in the country. However, the victim may believe, because of the flaws in the design of the system, that a deportation is occurring, only for the person concerned to turn up on their doorstep.
	Frankly, the Government have got to get their act together and start designing systems that are firm, but fair and effective. The current proposals are not effective. They put the judicial process at the end of the system, rather than at the beginning, and that process should take place at the beginning.

Keith Vaz: I wish to speak briefly in support of my amendment No. 2 and of new clause 1, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney).
	I have previously raised with a Home Office Minister a case involving a constituent of mine, a young man from Leicester who was studying in Manchester. He was killed in a road accident by a Chinese citizen. The matter went before the courts and there was a series of adjournments before the final hearing took place. Unknown to my constituent's parents, the person responsible for the crime, although he had not been convictedhe had been charged and was to appear for trialwas removed by the Home Office back to China. So although they were ready to attend the trial of this gentleman and were seeking closure in order to move on, they were told by the court staff that he had been removed.
	The then Minister with responsibility for such matters, my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham)he is now a Minister of State in the Department of Healthtold me that new procedures would be put in place to ensure that someone who was part of the judicial process would not be removed without people being informed. I am not sure whether that has happened. When the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality sums up the debate on this group of new clauses and amendments, he will doubtless tell us what has happened as a result of the issues raised in the Adjournment debate on this matter. Although I was satisfied with the actions of the then Minister, I was not convinced that the procedures adopted then by the Home Office would help us to ensure that such a situation would not occur again.
	Hence the need for new clause 1, which is a sensible, reasonable provision that would help the Home Office and the victims of crime. In the light of today's statement about splitting the Home Office in half and putting the Prison Service and the probation service under the remit of the Ministry of Justicea move that I supportwe will be dealing with two Departments instead of one. The flow of information might therefore not be as seamless as one would have liked; it certainly was not seamless before. However, if we adopted new clause 1, which has the support of other Members, such information would be forthcoming. As a result, victims would be informed and people would not be left in the situation faced by my constituents, to whom information was given only when they happened to ask. If the new clause was accepted, such information would be given to victims not by the Crown Prosecution Service or the police, or by the opposing side's solicitors to their solicitors, but by the appropriate authorityin this case, the Home Office.
	The gentleman to whom I refer was removed to China, but we do not know whether he has come back to the United Kingdom. We have no indication whether a cross was put on his passport or whether the Home Office told the Foreign Office about this case, which would mean that when he applied for entry clearance, the officer concerned would be aware that he had committed a crime for which he had not been charged. That is why this information is vital and why new clause 1 is so important. For those who will suffer in future, such a provision would be a great comfort; and my constituents, who have suffered following the death of their son, would be able to feel that the Government have acted responsibly to ensure that they can obtain closure.

David Davies: I congratulate the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) on making the case for new clause 1 so well. When I first read it I did not realise its significance, or that such a problem existed in obtaining information. If it is accepted, it would help the victims of offences and it would help Members of Parliament to help those whom we feel have a genuine case for staying here. We cannot always get the information that we require about foreign nationals in this country.
	The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) echoed that concern, but I disagree with him slightly on one point. There is a wider malaise in the Home Office; not at the top, for onceI am not going to blame the Government for thisbut among its middle-management, who seem to feel that victims do not have the right to information about offences, be they offences involving foreign or British nationals. I was involved in a case concerning a British national, and it was impossible to get information for the victims of that crime on when that person was going to be released from custody, or even on what his sentence was. Such information should be freely available, but the reality is that it is not. I therefore hope that my colleagues will consider supporting new clause 1.
	I fear that I will not win so many friends in talking about the amendments in this group. Amendment No. 35 appears to be an attempt to take away from the Home Secretary the power to take decisions about deportations and to give more powers to the judiciary.

John Hemming: Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the Home Secretary's decisions are subject to judicial review in any event?

David Davies: Of course, but the hon. Gentleman will know that it is very difficult to initiate judicial reviewone has to prove not that one disagrees with the decision, but that the way in which it was made was fundamentally flawed in a legal sense. The amendment would make it easier for those who have committed offences to stay in this country.
	I turn to amendment No. 2, tabled by the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz), amendment No. 15 and the various Government amendments. It is my fundamental belief that those who come to this country who are willing to work, play their part and make a contribution should be welcomed. However, I am afraid that far too many people who come here have no intention whatsoever of living up to the high standards that we set in this country, or of obeying our rules, and are prepared to commit crimes persistently and with no regard whatsoever for their victims.
	As you may know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I wear another hat as a special constable, and every time I log on to the force computer it becomes clear that gangs of pickpockets from several European countriessome inside the EU and others outside itand from one African country are operating in this country, and that they have committed numerous offences and are arrested regularly. I can see their names and addresses on the computer and the long list of offences of which they have been convicted, and I know from statistics that they have been convicted of only a fraction of the offences that they have actually committed. However, they are not deported. Even when these provisions come into force, it is unlikely that many of them will be deported, because they are committing crimes that often carry a sentence of less than 12 months' imprisonment.
	It is my contention that there are far too many people in this country who should not be here as it is, and that we should be doing far more to get them out.

John Hemming: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Davies: In a momentwhen I have made my point about whether we should be booting out people aged over 18 or under 18 at the time of the offence. If we can remove more people from this country, we should do so if they are breaking the law. There should be no place in Great Britain for those who come here as career criminals.

John Hemming: Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that our amendment would enable a persistent pickpocket to be put through the deportation process, and that, unlike his proposal, it would lead to their deportation?

David Davies: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Although his amendment would make deportation possible, it would be unlikely to happen in practice. Low though my opinion is of the Home Office, the Home Secretary is at least accountable in some way to public opinion. That is one of the reasons we have had a few Home Secretaries recently. The public have lost confidence in them. Ultimately, I would prefer to put my faith, little though it is, in the Home Office rather than in the judiciary, because the judiciary is completely unaccountable and, in far too many instances, passes sentences that defy rationality and common sense.
	I shall make my final point bluntly. There should be no country in the world considered so dangerous that we should not deport people to it if they are persistent criminals or have committed serious crimes such as rape. I do not know what case the hon. Member for Walthamstow was talking about, but at least one rapist was imprisoned, and not deported on release, because Somalia was deemed to be too dangerous, and went on to commit another rape. I do not know the outcome, but I suspect that he still has not been deported.
	The Foreign Office was able to spend 10,000 on sending a private jet into Somalia, presumably containing security guards, to rescue people who had British passports and who had been fighting on one side or the other in the Somali civil war and were connected with al-Qaeda. We were able to get planes in to pick people upalthough I suspect that they will not make a great contribution to this countryso we should be able to send planes to take back people who are detrimental to the safety of the public in this country, such as the rapist I mentioned.
	As anyone who has been to Africa or anywhere in the third world will know, a little bit of money goes a long way. If we wanted to deport someone to Somalia, we would not need to go to the expense of chartering private jets. We could simply take them to the Kenyan border and pay someone a few dollars to take them over in a minibus. It would be easy to deport people to Somalia. Put me into the Home Office and I will deport people who do not belong in this country left, right and centre. There is no single country to which we cannot physically deport people, and there is no country so dangerous that we should not deport people to it if they have committed the most serious offences.

Paul Rowen: I hope that the Minister will accept new clause 1 and amendments Nos. 34, 35 and 2. We are having this debate about automatic deportation because last year the Home Office failed to review and implement deportation orders on several criminals in the system. The Home Secretary did not exercise his powers and ended up losing his job.
	I agree with the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney). In the short time I have been a Member of Parliament, I have dealt with several cases of women subject to domestic violence in forced marriages. I have written to the Minister about some of those cases and the most frustrating aspect for the women is that their husbands are still around, having served their sentences. Data protection legislation prevents the Minister from giving the women any indication of when their husbands are to be removed. In the past 12 months, I have dealt with four such cases. It is deplorable that women who have been subjected to domestic violence should not know how long their husbands will be roaming around or when they will be deported.

Keith Vaz: When such women come to my surgeries and ask me to write to the Home Office for all the information they can be given, the Minister or his official writes back to say, Sorry, as you are a third party, we cannot give you any information. The spouse is never informed of what is happening.

Paul Rowen: I agree. If new clause 1 and the amendments tabled by the Liberal Democrats were accepted, the victims would know at the time of sentence whether the offender was to be deported. The Minister can dress up the issue any way he wantsit might make good headlines to claim automatic deportation for a sentence of more than 12 monthsbut the clause is riddled with so many exceptions and ifs and buts that it will not happen. If our amendment is accepted, a decision will have to be made. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) gave the example of a pickpocket who commits a series of offences that do not qualify for an automatic 12-month sentence. Under the present rules, that person will not be subject to automatic deportation.

Liam Byrne: The automatic deportation provisions are not simply confined to those who have been given a 12-month sentence. They include the 324 offences that sit on section 72 of the 2003 Act. To take the excellent example of the recidivist pickpockets, their offences would be defined under the Theft Act 1968, which are on the section 72 order and so would be caught by the provisions of the Bill.

Paul Rowen: I am grateful to the Minister for that information. But let us take the example of a child asylum seekerI have dealt with one such case in the past 12 monthswho comes to this country with a false passport or no passport. At present, that offence attracts a 12-month sentence. The amendment tabled by the right hon. Member for Leicester, East, which applies the age limit of 18 to the date the offence was committed, rather than the date of conviction, would at least ensure some sort of parity when people are sentenced. The 12-month sentence limit is very arbitrary. Someone can be sent to jail for 12 months for not paying their council tax, for fly-tipping or for possession of cannabis.

David Davies: The hon. Gentleman is being nave. He talks about research, but nobody is sentenced to prison for 12 months for not paying their council tax, smoking cannabis or fly-tipping, although given our environmental problems, it would be good if they were for the latter. Let him give the House a single example of one council tax defaulter or cannabis smoker who has been given 12 months in prison and then he can make his case.

John Hemming: The hon. Member for Monmouth (David T.C. Davies) fails to understand what the Minister said, which is that certain offences require only a sentence or suspended sentence of imprisonment of any length to qualify.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. If a Member gives way to an intervention, it is usual for him to deal with it before taking another. Otherwise we lose the thread of the debate.

Paul Rowen: I am grateful for that guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
	The debate clearly illustrates why the clause needs serious revision. It is a fact, whether the hon. Member for Monmouth likes it or not, that those offences that I have mentioned can result in a 12-month jail sentence. They may not do so at the moment, although if he became Home Secretary I have no doubt that they would. We seek to provide clarity so that the judge will decide the sentence and the victim knows what will happen. Then, and only then, the decision can be subject to judicial review, whether by the Home Secretary or anybody else.

Damian Green: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who is being very generous. He is talking about clarity, so will he clear up what amendment No. 35 means? It states that
	in the opinion of the sentencing judge, there is no public interest or other lawful reason why the person should remain in the United Kingdom.
	What does the phrase public interest mean, as used in the amendment?

Paul Rowen: I can give the hon. Gentleman an example of what the phrase means. Let us say that a child from a war-torn country is seeking asylum here. The automatic 12-month sentence could lead to deportation, but it might not be in the public interest to send that child back to a country where he or she may not find a place of safety. That is why the public interest test has to be included. Moreover, the important point to remember is that what constitutes the public interest is subject to challenge by judicial review.

David Heath: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way; he is indeed being very generous. The public interest test is applied in every prosecution in this countryit is one of the requirements that the Crown Prosecution Service must meet before it mounts a prosecution, so it is hardly alien to our legal system. Surely, my hon. Friend is asking for the sort of clarity in sentencing that our hon. Friend the Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) asked for earlier from the Ministry of Justice. He was assured that that was part of Government thinking.

Paul Rowen: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. In conclusion, I hope that the Minister will consider new clause 1 and our amendments Nos. 34 and 35. They are important because they would provide clarity. We believe that the 12-month test is about headlines more than it is about dealing with real issues and offences.

Liam Byrne: I want to put on the record my gratitude to the House for the range of amendments in this group. The debate has been a good illustration of the sort of discussion that we had in Committee. There have been two extremes in the debate and, like all reasonable Governments, we have sought the right balance. We listened to the arguments made in Committee and, as the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) noted, we brought forward provisions to toughen some of the measures in the Bill.
	I shall begin by talking about some of the more procedurally oriented amendmentsnew clause 1, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney), and amendment No. 2 tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz). I have enormous sympathy for both, and should like to thank my colleagues for the time that they have spent arguing their case with me, in this and previous debates, and in private.
	I associate myself in particular with the remarks made by my hon. Friends the Members for Stafford and for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard). Many Members have encountered the same frustration at the lack of disclosure about sensitive cases. I have a great deal of experience of the sort of case raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow. Indeed, two such cases were brought to my attention just last Saturday. The first involved a young woman who was suffering intimidation by a former partner and having great difficulty understanding the status of the case. The second involved a young man suffering threats of violence from a former partner and members of her family

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I wonder whether I could ask the Minister to face the microphone? It is difficult for hon. Members and the  Hansard writers to hear him.

Liam Byrne: Thank you for your counsel, Madam Deputy Speaker.
	We need to make changes in this area, but our acceptance of new clause 1 is constrained by the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Human Rights Act 1998. The way in which it is drafted means that we would have to disclose information in quite a wide range of circumstances. For example, we would have to disclose the nature and basis of the asylum claim, and that could lead to questions about what considerations had been taken into account and what information was taken into account under articles 8 and 3 of the European convention on human rights.
	It is important that we frame the Bill in a way that allows us to disclose the maximum possible amount of information to families and victims, yet still observe the constraints of existing legislation. Section 15(1) ofthe Criminal Justice Act 2003 allows information to be disclosed on 65 different offences. Under that provision, victim liaison officers are allowed to provide information about when a decision is made, when a deportation has been effected, and what conditions are attached to a person who has been released on bail. The victim has to opt in, and that happens in about 5,000 cases each year, so some of the arrangements are working in practice. I would be grateful if my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford met me to discuss his constituency case in more detail, so that we can understand whether the arrangements that have been put in place under the Domestic Violence, Crime Victims Act 2004 are working in that case or whether there is a problem with the implementation of the policy. Is there something that is mechanically not working and needs to be addressed?

Damian Green: In many cases, deportation happens after an order by a judge. A judge will recommend deportationthat is a public judicial act. I genuinely fail to see how a Data Protection Act constraint can apply to an order that is made by a judge in an open court in front of reporters and so on.

Liam Byrne: Precisely. That is why, under the 2004 Act, it is possible for victim liaison officers to disclose information about whether a deportation has been effected and, when a decision has been made, what that decision will mean, as well as, if someone is released on bail, the conditions that are attached to that. If my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford will permit me, I should like to explore whether those arrangements are working in practice or whether they need to be improved.

David Kidney: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for all that he has said, including the offer of a meeting, which I readily accept. In so far as there are obstacles, as he has described, in the Human Rights and Data Protection Acts, those are clearly Acts of Parliament that this place has passed. We are now debating another Act of Parliament and surely we can set what we want the law to be. When my hon. Friend describes the first small step that was taken in the 2003 Act, will he look at whether that can be strengthened to meet the concern that I have described today?

Liam Byrne: The answer must be yes, because under the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act there is provision to disclose information about 65 different offences, but under the automatic deportation provisions in the Bill there are 324 offences listed in relation to section 72 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 that would result in automatic deportation if a sentence were handed out. As the hon. Member for Ashford pointed out, a court can recommend deportation, too. It is imperative that we understand how the Criminal Justice Act and the Bill line up. As I say, I am keen to ensure that there is nothing that is not working in practice as well.
	We need to go a step further. Because of representations made to me by Membersparticularly my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (Mr. Spellar), who is not in his placeand because of my experience in Birmingham, I have asked for a complete review of the disclosure policy of the Border and Immigration Agency. Today, I referred that to legal advisers for their view on whether we are operating at the boundary of existing provisions in the way we disclose information. I will write to Members by the end of the month with a statement of the new policy so that there is time for them to make representations before the Bill passes to another place.

Stewart Jackson: May I ask the Minister a straightforward question? Who will hold the data that he mentions? In Committee, I referred to the situation in my constituency where I have been seeking to obtain records of the offences committed by the 55 foreign prisoners released in a 12-month period from Peterborough prison. I have been told repeatedly by the Minister's Department that it cannot correlate the manual records held at the prison with those held at the former immigration and nationality directorate. If we cannot provide that sort of detailed information to a Member of Parliament, how can we possibly provide it, within the confines and the parameters that he mentions, to members of the public and, in particular, victims and their families?

Liam Byrne: We have to try to draw apart two different things. The inquiries that the hon. Gentleman has made are about the offences that have been committed by a reasonable number of individuals. As I think the replies will have made clearI apologise if they have notsuch an answer would involve a search through the details of each record. I think that the information sought by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford relates to what is happening to the perpetrator. Such information would detail whether an offender was being pursued for deportation, whether a deportation order had been served and whether the person had left the country. In other words, that information would show whether the victim was safe from further harassment or intimidationor worse. One does not need to surf through an individual's case history in enormous detail to provide such information, which is often required not only by victims, but by estranged spouses, who are involved in the particular problem that I face in my constituency.
	Let me deal with a point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East. A piece of correspondence that is with my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary addresses some of the questions that he raised. Amendment No. 2, which he tabled, relates to a debate that we had in Committee about whether the relevant date for consideration should be the date of conviction or the date of the offence. I shall rehearse the argument that was made, by which I guess that I stand.
	It is often very difficult to pin down the precise date of an offence, especially if it relates to drug dealing or sexual abuse. In sexual abuse cases, the victim is often unable to pin down the precise date of the offence, and the offence might have been perpetrated over a substantial period of time. If the relevant date was that of the offence, there would be a risk that the provisions would not be triggered for such an individual, although, as the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T.C. Davies) said, that person would be better not in Britain any more. While the answer that we propose might not be perfect, it is, on balance, the best possible solution.
	We have heard arguments at different extremes. The hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Rowen) and my neighbour, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming), argued that we should start with the judicial process. However, we already start with a judicial process because there will be criminal proceedings and a judge will hand down a sentence. I am troubled that their proposal would remove the strong relationship between committing an offence and being deported. It would put a great deal into the hands of judges and leave too much to judicial discretion. That would create the risk of different decisions being made in different parts of the country.
	I suppose that my objections to the hon. Gentlemen's proposal are threefold. First, we would lose all clarity about whether a breach of Britain's hospitality leads to deportation. Such clarity about consequences serves as an important deterrent that we should retain. Secondly, we would lose the British public's wider reassurance that serious criminality is not to be tolerated and that people who commit a serious offence will be removed. The combination of those factors would create the strong risk that criminally minded foreign nationals would be given the green light to try their luck because they could treat the discretion of the courts as a roll of the dice. Thirdly, I do not think that the proposal would get away from the problem of judicial reviews, given that amendment No. 35 would leave open the possibility of judicial review at the end of the process. It is important to remember that the non-suspensive appeal procedures for asylum claims that we have tried have been tremendously successful. There have been very few judicial reviews and even fewer have been lost.

John Hemming: That is not automatic deportation because clause 32 contains a massive number of exceptions. The Home Secretary's decision on whether an exception applies could be affected by a judicial review. The problem is that while it says that it is automatic deportation, it is in fact a mechanism whereby a button is pressed at the start, yet the process can later be reversed by judicial review. Judicial considerations should happen at the start of the process. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The Government have messed it up before and they will mess it up again.

Liam Byrne: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his good wishes, but under the arrangements in the Bill, the principal scope of judicial review is to determine whether the Home Secretary has properly considered an individual's claim for humanitarian protection or asylum. Under the provisions, it is possible for the Home Secretary to designate such a claim as being clearly unfounded. As I say, we have used such provisions before; they are not a great legal innovation and I am not claiming anything original for the Bill. We have tried and tested the mechanisms under the non-suspensive appeal procedure for asylum claims and they have been found to be very successful.
	The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) did not get a chance to speak to his amendments Nos. 15 and 8. I do not know whether he will have a chance to make his points later. His amendments go to the other extremethey would trigger automatic deportation for absolutely everybody, no matter what offence they had committed. We deliberately sketched the provisions in such a way that they apply extremely widely.

Damian Green: On a procedural point, just in case the reputation of my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) be traduced because he has not spoken to his amendments, I should point out that my understanding is that his amendments were not selected, so it is not surprising that he did not speak to them.

Philip Davies: rose

Liam Byrne: I give way to the hon. Gentleman.

Philip Davies: I am grateful to the Minister. I must apologise to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to the House; I had a meeting with a constituent and the Minister of State, Ministry of Defence, the right hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Mr. Ingram), and it overran, which meant that I could not be here in time to speak to my amendments. The point that I want to make about them is that if people come to this country and accept our hospitality and our welcome, they should at least abide by the laws of the land. Given that no one ever goes to prison the first time that they commit a crime, and given that it is rare for people to go to prison these days, surely the fact that someone has gone to prison at all, whatever the length of their sentence, means that they are not suitable to stay in this country.

Liam Byrne: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman had the chance to make that point. I missed him at the beginning of the debate; I looked around for him anxiously, and I am pleased that he has had the chance to intervene. The point that I make to him is that the application of the provisions is very wide. They apply to all foreign nationals who live in this country, and there may be some 3.4 million of them living here at any one time. That includes everybody who is granted indefinite leave to remain. The provisions could also apply to people born in this country to non-British parents after 1981, because they may not qualify automatically for British citizenship and may not have secured that privilege. It is quite possible for someone to have grown up in this countryto have come to this country for two or three weeks, but to have spent all their childhood and adult life hereand to be still subject to the automatic deportation provisions in the Bill. I want to avoid a situation in which someone who has spent all their life here and who is convicted and sentenced for something quite minorsuch as the proverbial charge of council tax non-paymentis deported to a country that they have not been to in their living memory.

John Hemming: Does the Minister accept that as stealing electricity is an offence under the Theft Act 1968, any period of imprisonment for stealing electricity would result in automatic deportation?

Liam Byrne: I will come to the arrangements that we will need to make under section 72 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 in a moment, but the point on which I want to finish is that there has to be a degree of balance. That is why we propose automatic deportation for those offences that attract a 12-month sentence or are referred to in section 72 of the 2002 Act. That is a very long list of offencesit is 40 pages long and includes 324 different offences. They are offences that the House has deemed serious, and I therefore believe that they should attract the automatic deportation provision.

David Davies: May I make a helpful suggestion? The Liberal Democrat Members sitting near to me seem to have a fixation about the theft of electricity. If the Minister could find a way to exempt people who steal electricity, and so not be deported, will the Liberal Democrat Members sitting on my leftthey are very much to the left of me, in factoffer to support the part of the Bill that we are discussing?

Liam Byrne: We will find out the answer to that question in the not-too-distant future.
	I come now to the amendments tabled by the hon. Members for Ashford and for Reigate (Mr. Blunt). I confess to having a great deal of sympathy with amendments Nos. 14 and 8, and there are only two insurmountable problems. First, there are offences for which the sanction is automatic deportation, but which attract, too, a sentence of less than a month. Because it is quite possible for someone to commit one of the 324 offences under section 72 of the 2002 Act, it is possible for them to be handed down a sentence of less than a month for an offence listed in that section. In that case, the provisions could not apply. Secondly, I am sympathetic to the notion that someone needs to be deported within six months of a deportation order being served. Again, the only obstacleI am afraid that it is insurmountableis that occasionally it may be impossible at the end of the six months, or within that period, to return the individual to a particular country.
	I understand the argument that was made by the hon. Member for Monmouth and I will explore with the Home Office human resources department whether there is any sort of secondment or contractual arrangement that we can enter into, bearing in mind the Register of Members' Interests.

David Davies: I will do it for free.

Liam Byrne: The offer has become better still.
	Sometimes, legal barriers prevent us from deporting people. The individual may be unfit for travel, there may be an outstanding judicial review, or travel documentation may be unavailable, which would make it difficult in practice to enforce the provisions proposed by the hon. Member for Ashford, however sympathetic I am to them.
	Amendment No. 8 would provide automatic deportation for all immigration offences. I would make two points. First, when it comes to assault occasioning actual bodily harm ofan immigration officer, common assault is listed in section 72, so it would attract automatic deportation. Secondly, we must remember that immigration offences are a broad class of offence and I do not necessarily think that we would want automatically to deport someone who, for example, had overstayed their visa for a couple of days to attend a graduation. I have received representations from Members on both sides of the House on such cases, particularly if someone cannot come back in after they are deported, so I would find it difficult to accept the amendment. It is important, however, to look again at the measures that we have proposed for consecutive and suspended sentences.
	The hon. Member for Ashford tabled amendments Nos. 9 and 10, which are slightly unclear at the edges. I was not certain whether he was seeking to exempt people given sentences in institutions or hospitals or to exclude indeterminate sentencesthat may, on one reading, be the outcome of the amendments. We believe that indeterminate sentences should be included in the remit of the provisions and time served in institutions, such as young offenders institutions, should be included. We think that time served in hospitals should be included, too.
	We differ on the question that was posed in Committee by the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) about whether we should include in the automatic deportation provisions consecutive and aggregated sentences. I find it very difficult to construct a solution that would solve the problem of offences and sentences that are handed down at different points in time. It is possible, for example, for an individual to be convicted of two different offences 30 years apart and for the cumulative sentences to add up to more than 12 months. In some cases, it is difficult to see how automatic deportation should apply, so it is important to preserve the right of in-country appeal. The individual should still face deportation, but there may be appeal rights that it is important to retain.
	On the question of suspended sentences, we have come to a quite different conclusion. The key issue to which Committee members sought to draw our attention was what we should do about recidivists. Members will be delighted to learn that since the Committee stage I have undertaken my own study of reoffending across 19 crime areas, where the rate of reoffending within two years ranged from 10 or 12 per cent. to 80 per cent. The assurance that I can give the House is that 13 of the 19 categories of offence are section 72 offences, so they would attract automatic deportation. There are a couple of offences not in section 72 that we should consider, in particular drink driving offences and soliciting and prostitution. We will give the matter further consideration before we lay a new section 72 order later this year. That would be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure in the House, so hon. Members would be able to comment.
	Offences such as violence, theft, burglary and robbery, as well as drug offences, are already includedmany of the issues that were raised in Committee. I am not sure, from memory, whether theft of electricity is included, but burning down houses, another case that we discussed at length in Committee, is covered. The important thing is that there should be an opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny of the order.
	The Government amendments provide that if somebody is given a suspended 12-month sentence or a suspended sentence for a section 72 offence, and any part of that sentence is subsequently activated, the automatic deportation provisions will apply. We think that if somebody is given a suspended sentence, in effect the court is saying, The sentence that we are giving you is an indication that you haven't committed an offence so serious that you should automatically be deported. The individual therefore has a chance to play their cards right and stay in the country. If, however, they commit an offence and the suspended sentence is activated for whatever period, they have had their chance and blown it and the automatic deportation provisions should take effect.
	We spent a great deal of time debating the matter in Committee and I am grateful to hon. Members for their contribution. These tougher provisions are right. Overall, the provisions are important. I said on Second Reading that there are 8,000 to 10,000 foreign nationals in our jails. We think that the provisions will apply to about 4,500a substantial numberwhich sends out a clear signal not only to the British public, but to the foreign nationals who are here to enjoy our hospitality, that criminality cannot and will not be tolerated.

David Kidney: We have had a good and sometimes lively debate on this group of amendments and on new clause 1. I am grateful to hon. Members in all parts of the House who spoke in support of the arguments that I put in favour of the new clause. I accept what my hon. Friend the Minister says about the statutory restrictions that prevent the Home Office and its agencies from giving the kind of information that I spoke about earlier. We are putting in place a new Act of Parliament and it is our responsibility to set a statutory framework that we think is right, so I urge my hon. Friend to go further than he has done so far.
	I understand, too, that my new clause has legal ramifications, with which the drafting that I prepared may not fully deal. I, after all, do not have available to me the same resources for drafting legislation as the Minister and his Department, but by tabling the new clause I wanted to put down a marker to my hon. Friend that I will not go away and that the issue is important. I am pleased that, at the very least, our debate has sparked a wholesale review of the Department's policy on disclosure of information.
	A fundamental point has still not been addressed with respect to the balance of rights between victims of crime and the offenders who commit those crimes, so there is a need for more to be done. I accept the Minister's offer of a meeting, to discuss not just the interests of my individual constituent, but the wider issue to which I have just referred. I accept that he is going in the right direction and intends to do more. On the basis of his assurances, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
	 Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 2
	  
	Immigration service: welfare of children

'In section 11(1) of the Children Act 2004 (c.31), after paragraph (m) insert
	(n) a regional office of the National Asylum Support Service;
	(o) the centre manager of an immigration removal centre;
	(p) the Chief Immigration Officer at a port of entry.'. [Damian Green.]
	 Brought up, and read the First time.

Damian Green: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Madam Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
	New clause 12 Children: exemption from reporting and residence conditions
	'After section 3(1) of the Immigration Act 1971 (c. 77) (limited leave to enter or remain) insert
	(1A) A child making an asylum claim or a human rights claim whilst he is under the age of 18 shall not be subject to the conditions in subparagraphs (1)(c)(iv) and (v) above until he reaches the age of 18.
	(1B) For the purposes of this section asylum claim and human rights claim have the same meaning as in section 113 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (c. 41).'.
	Amendment No. 1, in page 3, line 14, Clause 5, after 'person' insert 'aged 16 or over'.
	Amendment No. 36, in page 15, line 37, Clause 30, at end insert
	'(5) In section 4 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004 (c. 19) after subsection (5) add
	(6) If there are reasonable grounds to believe that a person has been the victim of trafficking in human beings, that person shall not be removed from the UK until the process of identifying the person as a victim of an offence has been completed.
	(7) If an unaccompanied child is identified as a victim of trafficking, the Secretary of State shall
	(a) provide for representation of the child by a legal guardian, organisation or authority which shall act in the best interests of that child;
	(b) take the necessary steps to establish the identity and nationality of the child; and
	(c) make every effort to locate the family of the child when the Secretary of State determines that this is in the best interests of the child.
	(8) If an individual has been identified as a victim of trafficking the Secretary of State shall allow a recovery and reflection period of not less than 30 days.
	(9) During the reflection period established under subsection (8) it shall not be possible to enforce any expulsion order against that person and the Secretary of State shall authorise the persons concerned to stay in the UK.'.

Damian Green: I wish to speak to three of the four amendments in this group and to support my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) on amendment No. 36, which I recognise from proceedings in Committee and which seems extremely sensible.
	New clause 2 would extend the duty under section 11 of the Children Act 2004 to make arrangements to safeguard and promote children's welfare to those providing services to refugee children and families, specifically immigration removal centres, the National Asylum Support Service and those dealing with refugee children at ports of entry. Section 11 places a duty on relevant agencies providing services to children to have regard to the need to safeguard and promote their welfare in discharge of their normal functions. The services with primary responsibility for the welfare and support of refugee children and their families, including the immigration service, are currently excluded from the otherwise long list of those to whom the duty applies.
	Ministers have addressed this issue. The Home Office's consultation paper, Planning Better Outcomes and Support for Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children, which was published in February, says:
	Young asylum seekers, whether children in need or looked after children, matter every bit as much as other young people in the context of meeting each and all of the five outcomes of the Every Child Matters framework.
	That is not a great piece of prose, but the thinking behind it is extremely good. In this context it is noteworthy, and perhaps alarming, that the Government do not seek to offer refugee children the protection afforded by section 11. Ministers will be aware that the Refugee Children's Consortium campaigned to ensure that refugee children would have the same protection as other children under the section 11 duty. The Joint Committee on Human Rights, whose Chairman I see in his place, has criticised the Government's position, stating:
	the omission of this particular group of children from the institutional arrangements designed to fulfil the State's positive obligations to children under articles 2, 3 and 8 raises the question of whether this gives rise to unjustifiable discrimination in the enjoyment of Convention rights.
	In the other place, Ministers argued that the inclusion of the refugee agencies would be overly restrictive. They also argued that in undertaking its primary function, the IND, as it then was, would do things that would be judged as inconsistent with a duty to safeguard and promote welfare.
	That is the nub of a debate that has been running for a long time. It is worth going back to first principles. Section 11 of the 2004 Act is not an absolute dutyit simply requires agencies to make arrangements to have regard to the need to safeguard children and promote their welfare when they discharge their functions. As Ministers said in another place:
	We have been very careful in the way in which we have worded this clause: we do not put a duty on agencies that would make them unable to fulfil their primary functions.[ Official Report, House of Lords, 17 June 2004; Vol. 662, c. 995.]
	Conservative Members certainly do not dispute that the primary function of the immigration service is to ensure effective immigration control, but similarly we would argue, as would everyone, that the primary function of the police is to ensure public order and prevent crimeyet the chief officer of police is included in the section 11 duty. The explanatory notes to the 2004 Act state:
	This duty is intended to ensure that agencies are conscious of the need to safeguard children and promote their welfare in the course of exercising their normal functions.
	The analogy is a good one. If the police can be regarded as exercising their proper central functions while having regard to the constraint, it is hard to understand from first principles why immigration bodies should not be able to fulfil their functions while operating under it.
	The Refugee Children's Consortium has taken legal advice, which states that section 11 would not prevent the Home Secretary from implementing removal directions for a child or his or her family and would, at most, affect the manner in which the removal occurred. Decent legal advice therefore shows that the exercise of the duty would not damage the proper functions of not only the front-line agencies but Ministers and officials when making the most difficult decisions about removal.
	I am sure that the Minister knows that the Children's Commissioner for England has described the refugee services' omission from section 11 as a great disappointment. He also said that he believes that the exclusions are already having an impact on relations between those who are subject to the duty and those who are not. The Refugee Children's Consortium argues that the standards of safeguarding for that group of children are inadequate. The Minister is a decent and humane man and will not wish children to be made more vulnerable through the lack of the duty, which would not impede the proper function of the immigration service.
	In Committee, the Minister tried to assure us. He made the point that a wider debate was going on, and that discussions were taking place between the children's champion in the immigration and nationality directorate and the Children's Commissioner for England about the way in which the IND could be subject to section 11. He said that he did not want to pre-empt the outcome of those discussions, but he would explore what information he could provide at the earliest opportunity. Now is his chance not only to provide the information but to change the Government's stance on the issue. I am clearly not alone in my view. A wide coalition of interests argues that the Government are simply wrong about the matter.
	New clause 12 tries to probe the Government. It would ensure that conditions for residence and reporting were not imposed on someone who claimed asylum or protection under the Human Rights Act 1998 when under 18 and who had been granted leave to remain as a refugee or given humanitarian protection or discretionary leave. Clause 16 gives the Secretary of State power to impose reporting and residence requirements on those with discretionary leave, humanitarian protection and refugee leave. It provides for conditions such as curfews or a requirement to live in a specific location.
	On Second Reading, the Minister said that he intended initially to apply the measure to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. The document that the Government published on 28 February repeated that and put it in the context of changes in the regime for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children under the new asylum model, which restricts some of the rights that those children previously received.

Anthony Steen: The House is most grateful to my hon. Friend for his interest in the Bill and the amendments that he has tabled. What does he believe to be the purpose of the consultation paper? Does he agree that it should not be implemented until the consultation period has expired, all parties have given their views and the Government have had time to consider them?

Damian Green: It is up to the Minister to explain the purpose of the consultation. However, my hon. Friend's underlying point is correct. A consultation that takes place duringin some cases, afterthe passage of a relevant measure, so that we cannot possibly have responded to it, suggests bad process. Indeed, Ministers cannot properly respond because it is not yet finished. The only consolation that I can give my hon. Friend is that all experience tells us that, just as one immigration Bill passes to the other place and on to the statute book eventually, so another one will come along soon. We have had five such Bills in the past 10 years and we have already been half promised a consolidation Bill next year. One point made in Committee that cannot be made often enough is that quite a lot of the serious parts of previous immigration legislation have not yet been implementedeven while we debate and pass the current Bill. I can well imagine that large parts of this Bill will not have been implemented by the time the next immigration Bill comes along. That is not in any way to defend the way in which the Government do these things.
	To provide a more detailed answer, my understanding is that, in future, children and young people will receive only limited leave until they are 17 and a half in order that any further applications that they wish to make can be concluded before they become 18. The Government's hope is that that will have the effect of making many more young people liable to enforced return immediately on turning 18. The reporting and residence requirements in the new clause are intended to support that approach by providing additional mechanisms to monitor those young people in the period running up to their 18th birthday, when they can expect to be removed.
	The contention made by the Refugee Children's Consortiumand the question that the Minister has to addressis that that approach will not achieve its intended aims. Children who seek asylum alone in this country are often very vulnerable and, whether or not they meet the 1951 convention criteria, many will have a real fear of returning and do not consider it a realistic option. We can debate what should happen in principle to such children, but the practical point that I hope the Minister will address is that, faced with these additional residence and reporting requirements, large numbers of children will simply disappear from care and go on to the streets. We all know that if that happens, they are more likely to face danger and possible sexual or economic exploitation. In that case, the Government would not only fail to achieve their aim of removing more young people when they reach 18, but place more children in the way of moral or physical harm. I cannot believe that the Minister wants to achieve that.

Anthony Steen: I thank my hon. Friend for that very comprehensive and informative reply, which I am sure the whole House will have enjoyed listening to as much as I did, but can he help me a little more on the question of being 17 and a half? It seems to have sinister overtones, which I do not fully understand. I wonder whether my hon. Friend fully understands the significance of being 18. Once young people are 18, for example, do they have more rights than they did at 17 and a half? On the question of disappearance, is my hon. Friend aware of the ECPAT reportEnd Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposeswhich showed that 48 children in the care of three local authorities disappeared last year? Will the Bill help?

Damian Green: I am indeed aware of that report and my contention is that the Bill may actually make things worse. To answer the first part of my hon. Friend's question, no, these young people do not get more rights at 18. At 18 they can be deported and the Government are trying to ensure that they know where they are for the six months leading up to their 18th birthdays so that they are easier to deport. My problem with that is that I do not believe that the Government's actions will make it any more likely that any individual will be there to be deported. Indeed, it is more likely that they will disappear earlier, putting themselves into danger.
	Therefore, my objection to the provision is not a principled one but a practical one. It will achieve exactly the reverse of what the Government are seeking to do. To that extent, I agree with the Refugee Children's Consortium that such an attempt to legislate for open-ended reporting and residence requirements for these children will not work, and that the Government's rationale is inadequate. The Children Act duties on social services are sufficient to ensure that the children are cared for and protected and that their whereabouts are known. The additional reporting and residence requirements will be counter-productive for the Government and, perhaps even more importantly, for the children themselves.
	Amendment No. 1 would exclude those under 16 from having to have biometric immigration documents. I suspect that there might not be much appetite for another full-scale debate on biometric documents just at the moment, but we shall certainly have such debates again and again in the coming years. The problem is that the provisions in the Bill are age-neutral. It is widely agreed, even by Ministers, that collecting and using biometric data from children is difficult and impractical. A study carried out for the Dutch Government found that the
	facial changes taking place up to the age of 12 are so marked that face recognition is not possible without highly sophisticated software and the considerable expense that goes with it.
	In relation to fingerprints, the same document goes on to state that
	the papillary ridges on the fingers are not sufficiently developed to allow biometric capture and analysis until the age of six.
	During earlier stages of the Bill, we held some very helpful evidence sessions, which were attended by experts including Professor Ross Anderson from Cambridge university. He said that
	fingerprint technology is certainly not good enough if you are matching one population against another, say 90 million people a year arriving at Heathrow versus 60 million people in the UK. You will get absolutely swamped by false matches. [Official Report, UK Borders Public Bill Committee, 1 March 2007; c. 96.]
	So, as a subset of the general problem with using fingerprints for such recognition, there is a particular problem relating to children that makes their use even more unreliable.
	I hope that the Minister will be able to address the practicalities of the proposal. In particular, I hope that he will provide us with information about the cost of the software required to calculate age-related changes in biometric information, and tell us how that requirement will be funded. Will he also set out the frequency of registration to which under-16s would be subject for the purposes of maintaining a biometric immigration document? Again, I believe that the practicalities will tell against the Government's aims in this field.
	I shall leave it to my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) to bring to the debate on amendment No. 36 his considerable expertise and campaigning skills in this area.

Andrew Dismore: The hon. Gentleman cited the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights on the treatment of asylum seekers. The evidence that we on the Committee saw and heard, directly and indirectly, made the case very strongly that the convention should apply to asylum seekers' children and to other children equally. We took evidence from a head teacher, whose view was that there should not be two children in the same class with different rights. One of the issues that we identified was the difficulty of establishing the age of asylum seekers' children. We were particularly concerned about the use of dental X-rays, and suggested that a more holistic approach should be adopted in that regard. Would the hon. Gentleman care to say something about that?
	We were very concerned about the quality of care provided by some local authorities, and about the need for much more specialist training and awareness of the particular concerns facing asylum seekers' children, which were not being addressed. The hon. Gentleman raised that point in the context of reporting.

Damian Green: I am grateful for all those interventions. The hon. Gentleman's Committee has done much valuable work. I have seen, as he has, evidence suggesting that dental records are not the panacea that Ministers once hoped that they would be. In all conscience, it is difficult to determine a teenager's age, within two years, on the basis of dental records. Clearly, a difference of two years might be crucial. It seems sensible to use some kind of dental evidence, but perhaps in conjunction with other evidence.
	I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is right that the standard of care provided by local authorities is variable. I would speak up particularly for those most exposed local authorities, which are often overwhelmed, and which find that central Government's financial regime has become less generous in recent years. The borough of Hillingdon, with Heathrow airport in its area, has huge problems in that regard, and I have great sympathy with it and its council tax payers, who must ultimately pick up a large share of the bill for what we all recognise is essentially a national rather than a local issue.
	We all agree that we need a fast, efficient, effective and humane asylum system. The problem is that the Government are now so desperate to appear tough on asylum and immigration that, in some parts of their policy, they are in danger of losing touch with basic humanity. I hope that the Minister will reassure the House that that is not the case.

Paul Rowen: I support new clauses 2 and 12 and amendment No. 1, tabled by me and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming).
	In Committee, we had a full and frank discussion of the new powers granted to immigration officers under the Bill. The Minister gave a number of assurances, especially with regard to the training and support that immigration officers will receive to implement the new powers. When we raised the issue of asylum-seeking children, he also stated that he was entering discussions with the Children's Commissioner about making sure that asylum-seeking children were covered by the provisions. When he responds, I hope that he will update us on those discussions.
	We, and certainly the Refugee Children's Consortium, believe that it is an anomaly that immigration officers are not covered by the provisions. We do not see why the Government cannot accept the new clause, which does not impose new restrictions or make the job of immigration officers more difficult. It does ensure, however, that asylum-seeking children are subject to the same safeguards as all other children. Clearly, as the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) said in reference to his report, it is wrong that two children in the same classroom should be subject to different levels of safeguards. I hope that the Minister will accept the new clause.
	With regard to new clause 12, on reporting and residence arrangements, as I said in Committee I do not see what particular expertise immigration officers have in relation to looking after young children. The Minister said then that he wanted to ensure that a relationship developed between immigration officers and asylum-seeking children to facilitate their speedy removal. I ask him now to consider what advantages that process has over the existing arrangements under which local authority social services and education departments deal with such children.
	I have personal experience of asylum-seeking children who have been subject to all sorts of trauma in their home countries. Some have witnessed horrendous murders, and some may well have been abused themselves. Now officers with no training or expertise in dealing with such issues as child abuse are to be asked to build up a relationship. What will that achieve? I do not think it will facilitate the speedy removal of asylum-seeking children. I believe that that can be done through local authorities and National Asylum Support Service officers who, in Rochdale at any rate, are employed by the local authority and have a day-to-day relationship with families seeking asylum. That, I believe, is the best way to ensure that any provisions relating to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are implemented. I fear that if the residence and reporting arrangements are enforced, perhaps clumsily, many children will disappearwhich is not the object of the exerciseor put themselves in a position in which they are in someone else's control, without particularly wanting that to happen. In that event, they might be subjected to all sorts of horrendous acts.
	The aim of the new clause is to prevent young people under 18 from being subject to the reporting restrictions. In Committee the Minister gave us no explanation of how the restrictions would apply, and how they would affect such things as education. I asked him then whether young children would have to report to the centre. In the case of Greater Manchester, it would be the Salford centre. What would be the effect of a monthly trip to Salford from Rochdale? Might it not disrupt the child's education?
	We believe that the restrictions are not necessary, and that the controls the Minister wants can be provided through better use of existing local authority arrangementsfor instance, through the Immigration Advisory Service.
	Let me now deal with amendment No. 1. As the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) pointed out, we have had a number of discussions about biometrics. The Government have allowed themselves everything including the kitchen sink in terms of the information that they want to be stored about people. The plain fact is that, as evidence has shown, fingerprints and facial expressions do not provide reliable measurements.
	We tabled an amendment in Committee suggesting that if the Government insisted on using biometrics, they should note evidence suggesting that eye biometrics were the most stable. We believe that the safest course in lieu of that amendment, which was rejected, is to ensure that children under 16 are not subjected to biometrics. In a family context, the process can be dealt with through the children's parents. I hope that the Minister will reconsider his position, especially on new clause 2 as it would ensure that asylum-seeking children were treated the same as every other child.

Andrew Dismore: I was not planning to speak in the debate, but as the hon. Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen), who tabled amendment No. 36, is not in the Chamber I shall try, as Chair of the Human Rights Committee, to step into his not insubstantial shoes to talk about people trafficking.
	My criticism of amendment No. 36 is that it does not go far enough. It seems to put in statutory form the requirements of the European convention against trafficking in human beings, which the Government have already agreed to sign. I am pleased that they accepted the recommendation of my Committee to that effect when we produced our report in the autumn, but signing does not go far enough; the treaty must be properly ratified not just by the United Kingdom but by other countries to make sure that it comes into effect.
	Amendment No. 36 would recognise and protect the victims of people trafficking, which is reckoned the second most serious international crime after the drugs trade. It is organised crime, involving large numbers of people and huge amounts of money. Several years ago, the Government admitted that 4,000 women had been trafficked for sexual purposes, but that figure is now widely seen to be an underestimate. Having met victims of people trafficking through the Poppy project and heard evidence about that crime, I have no doubt that the provisions of the amendment are important.
	It is important that the victims of trafficking are recognised as such at a sufficiently early stage for them to be protected, and that they are not faced with arbitrary removal, as has been the case for some of them in the past. When a brothel is raided everybody is rounded upvictims of people trafficking and traffickers alike. That has to stop.
	The convention makes specific provision for unaccompanied children who are trafficked, as set out in subsection (5) of the amendment. Their interests must be represented in the legal process through a guardian; the children must be properly identified and efforts made to locate their family back home.
	However, what is important is the question of recovery and reflection, which the amendment, unfortunately, does not define. Recovery and reflection are about putting the interests of the victims of trafficking firstmaking them paramount in the process. For example, a woman may have been the victim of multiple rape over a prolonged period. Recovery and reflection would give such victims the time to come to terms with what happened to them and the support and counselling they needed to address those appalling experiences, and then to decide the extent to which they could co-operate with the authorities in bringing the perpetrators of their trafficking to justice. On the evidence we heard in the Select Committee, the period of 30 days specified in the amendment, which is the period in the convention, is far too short. It is important that victims are given the chance to have a period of reflection before action is taken on their removal.
	As I said, my main concern is that the amendment does not go far enough in protecting victims, to make sure that there is support for them not only through organisations such as the Poppy project but also in the criminal justice process so that their immigration status is dealt with properly. When I met a woman from eastern Europe, through the Poppy project, I was appalled to hear that her trafficker had been convicted and served a lengthy prison sentence, yet her immigration status had still not been favourably determined. That cannot be right and it is an example of what needs to be done.
	We must make sure that when the victims of trafficking come to light they are properly supported to resettle either in our country or in their country of origin. If they are returned, they should be rehabilitated effectively and properly. At the Poppy project, we heard of one poor woman who had been returned to her country without proper support and retrafficked within 48 hours by her family.
	The amendment is important. It adds to the legislation on immigration and asylum some of the protections provided in the convention, which the Government have now agreed to sign. However, it does not go far enough. I hope that in responding to this brief debate the Minister will give a commitment that the Government will seriously tackle this matter, not necessarily with legislation but on the back of the convention that they have so properly at long last agreed to accept.

James Clappison: I did not intend to speak in this debate, but I feel prompted to do so by the contributions made so far. I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green) for not being present in the Chamber when he moved the new clause; I was attending a Select Committee sitting. However, I know from experience that my hon. Friend has great concern for the welfare of children in the circumstances under discussion, and it is proper to have such concern. I seek an assurance from the Minister that the Government are dealing with children in as humane a fashion as possible and taking their interests into account.
	I make no secret of the fact that I have many wide-ranging criticisms of the asylum system. I recognise that many people try to use the system as a means of facilitating their migration to this country when they do not have a proper asylum claim. However, I also recognise that a substantial number of people do have genuine claims for asylum, and we must bear in mind their interests as well. Looking at the system in the world as a whole, I find it hard to see a thread of consistent logic in how it operates, particularly in conjunction with the carriers' liability provisions that this country has adopted.
	However, almost all decisions to come to this countrywhether for reasons of economic migration or because somebody is genuinely fleeing persecutionare taken by adults. They are not taken by children. When children arrive here and are unaccompanied, we owe them a special duty of considerationseeing things from their point of view and recognising some of the experiences that they might have been through. Whenever a child is unaccompanied by an adult, we must do as much as we properly can to ensure their welfare. My hon. Friend made his points on that very well.
	I do not intend to discuss some of the legal arguments to do with the various obligations that countries have or those that we seek to place on local authorities and others. However, I know that the Minister is genuinely engaged with this subject, and I seek an assurance from him that the Government are conforming to the highest humanitarian standards in dealing with such children. The public would expect that of us, irrespective of how we might feel about other parts of the asylum system.

Liam Byrne: I am grateful to Members for having tabled the new clauses and amendments in this group, so that we have had the opportunity to debate on Report another subject on which we spent a considerable amount of time in Committee. Members of all parties have made representations to me during my happy months as immigration Ministerand I have spent nearly a year in this post now. The fact that they have done so underlines the point that the House takes this issue very seriously, and it is proper that on Report we should have a debate such as this.
	We must strike a balance. On the one hand we must ensure that, as the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) said, unaccompanied children are given the right level of protection when they come into contact with us in this country and come under our care. On the other hand, we also have a duty to ensure that the deportation of children who have no right to be here and whom it is perfectly safe to remove does not become so difficult that in effect a green light is switched on for every child trafficker around the world.
	The Government and the Public Bill Committee have put considerable effort into ensuring that the Bill contains a number of new measures that make it easier to track down people smugglers and human traffickers, wherever on earth they perpetrate their crimes. It would be unfortunate if we ended up with a Bill that in any way encouraged that barbaric trade by making it so difficult to remove people who have no right to be here that Britain became a target.
	Our starting point is a protocol that it is perfectly right that our Government should carry on implementing. We did not invent it; it was devised and explained to this House by a Conservative immigration Minister back in the early 1990s. The point is that when such children become adults, it is important for us to ensure that they go back home when a court has said that it is safe for them to do so. Otherwise, it is impossible to maintain the integrity of the immigration systema sentiment that was well reflected by the hon. Member for Hertsmere.
	I am proud to say that this Government have helped to lead the way in Europe on this subject. During our EU presidency we pushed through the EU action plan on human trafficking. When we established the Serious Organised Crime Agency, we made sure that four of the 20 work programmes pursued by it related to tackling trafficking. After considerable debate, we published in March the UK trafficking action plan, which provides an holistic approach to prevention, prosecution and support. Last year we established the United Kingdom Human Trafficking Centrea facility that a number of Members have visited. Of course, this year we signed the Council of Europe convention on human traffickinga subject about which I feel very strongly, not least because my predecessor as MP for Birmingham, Hodge Hill is now the Secretary-General of the Council of Europe.
	I shall discuss the amendments and new clauses in reverse order, as the first to which I want to speak is amendment No. 36. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) for ensuring that we would debate it, and I agree with him that it does not go far enough. In effect, it picks out parts of the convention and seeks to put them into effect through the Bill. Of course, the problem is that incomplete implementation would create risks in different parts of the system. For example, the amendment does not deal with how people get support, or how victims of human trafficking under forced labour provisions might be protected.
	We want to ensure that the convention is not implemented in an incomplete fashion; we do not want to drop defences, thereby creating a pull factor. Crucially, we want to ensure protections for all victims of trafficking. I want to give my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon the commitment that we will implement the convention, but not in a half-and-half way. That is why we have said that we will ratify it only when we are absolutely confident that we can implement it in full. A project team has been established at the Home Office that is reviewing what training and legislation is required, what legislation is required of other Government Departments, and what support arrangements need to be put in place not just by the Government but by local authorities.
	I understand that some 35 countries have signed the convention, that seven have ratified it and that Germany is shortly to sign. Once 10 countries have ratified it, it will effectively be in force. However, it is important for this Government to ensure that when we choose to ratify it, we can implement it in full. Otherwise, I fear that signature and ratification will be dismissedrightlyas a token gesture.

Andrew Dismore: I am grateful to the Government for the very positive response that we received to our report last autumn. When does the Minister expect the work to which he has just referred to be completed, and when will the Government be in a position to implement the requirements of the convention?

Liam Byrne: I am unable to give my hon. Friend reassurance on the time scale this afternoon. I am more than happy to ensure that, either on an individual basis or through the Committee that he chairs, which has taken a close interest in this subject, the Home Office provides regular updates on the timetable and the progress against it, so that we have proper scrutiny and monitoring of an issue of some interest to all hon. Members.

Anthony Steen: I apologise for not being here to speak in support of my amendment, but I was occupied in two other places. I hoped to be here in time, but unfortunately my colleagues did not speak for long enough.
	We are all in favour of the Council of Europe, and we are grateful to the Minister for his interest in getting the convention signed, but how does that square with the consultation paper suggestions, which propose giving children far fewer rights than suggested by the convention? The two appear to be on a collision course. Is that how the Minister sees itand if not, will he explain why not?

Liam Byrne: I am happy to do that, because I see no collision course, and my staff spent some time on the report before it was issued, which is why it was slightly late. I wanted to ensure that it had proper consideration at the right levels of seniority within the Home Office. The consultation document tries to flush out a couple of ideas, but none is more important than new measures to ensure that we do not have children in the adult care system oreven more importantlythat we do not have adults in the children's system. That is why age testing is so important.
	There are measures in place that may provide certainty to plus or minus five years, but if we were to rely on them we would open ourselves to the risk of having adults in the children's system, and that is not something that I would be prepared to countenance knowingly. Therefore it is incumbent on us to explore any opportunity to improve the accuracy of age testing. I know that there is controversy over the use of dental X-rays and other methods, and I am grateful for the tone that the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) struck. It is incumbent on us to try to make an imprecise science as precise as we can.
	The second group of measures on which we are trying to solicit views through the consultation document concerns the care arrangements available for children. As the hon. Gentleman said, those are concentrated in London at present. That means that boroughs such as Hillingdon, where I have met the directors, shoulder an unfair burden. If we encouraged different local authorities in various parts of the country to become specialists in the provision of such care, we could manage some of the pressures in London better and improve the overall care that we can offer unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. That is why I stress that the document is a consultation document. It has been put together with good intentions, and it contains open questions. I encourage hon. Members to respond to it.
	The consultation document does not contain any particular question, policy or direction of travel that requires legislation to underpin or implement it. Efforts to strengthen the support that we provide for children will undergo incremental improvement over the next few years. The reform plan for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children is one part of that, and the Council of Europe convention is another. There will be others, and we must keep the spotlight constantly on the issue, so that any opportunity to improve care is taken up.

Anthony Steen: I was concerned about articles 10 and 13 of the convention, which provide the victim with assistance and protection. The Minister is clearly satisfied that the consultation paper will not conflict with those objectives, but why have the Government refused to lift the reservation on the UN convention on the rights of the child? That is about giving children protection. The Government keep saying that the convention might conflict with domestic legislation, but what domestic legislation? It would be marvellous if the Government took the lead on that convention.

Liam Byrne: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, and I shall address that precise matter in my remarks on a later amendment. However, I shall first pick up some points made by the hon. Member for Ashford about biometric immigration documents. I have somewhat lost track of where he stands in the debates about Europe that often surface in his party, and I cannot remember whether he would be influenced by the fact that the European Commission is about to introduce requirements for biometric residence permits. I understand that from this week that requirement will apply to third-country national children aged six and oversomething that may appeal to some in the Conservative party, although it may not cut much ice with others.
	Two important arguments support the issuing of biometric immigration documents to children. The first is that that will help us tackle trafficking. I shall pray in aid a contribution that I solicited from the United Kingdom Human Trafficking Centre, which
	views biometrics as having great potential as a tool for law enforcement to effect identity, recovery and rescue of child victims of trafficking. Having biometric details of children means that when you encounter a victim you can identify and rescue them from whatever form of exploitation they are suffering.
	We have sought to introduce biometrics in two ways. First, we have issued biometric visas abroad, a process that allows us to pin down the relationship between the child and a particular adult, and to capture the child's biometrics at that time. We have successfully issued 5,500 biometric visas to children, and by the end of the year they will be issued at all our visa posts abroad.
	When a child applies for further leave in-country, we can check the child's biometrics again, and determine that the family coming along with the child is the same as the one that was with the child when the application for the biometric visa was made. An alarm is triggered if there are discrepancies. I do not understand why we would want to turn that alarm system off, as I consider it an important step forward.
	The second argument for biometric checks is that in the long term, they will help us to tackle fraud. Their introduction will help us to govern and police access by third-country nationals to the benefits system. Capturing the biometrics of children allows us to stop the deplorable crime of child swapping, whereby a child is placed with a family to try to improve that family's eligibility for benefits. The ability to pin down a child's biometrics on our systems and place that child with a family will give us a way to tackle problems of that sort.
	I know that questions have been asked about unstable biometrics. The problems that arise have less to do with capturing the biometrics than with the matching software. The report about the costs of biometrics will be laid before the House shortly, as I am sure that the hon. Member for Ashford will be delighted to hear. In answer to his specific question about frequency of registration, I can tell him that it is currently envisaged that people will be asked to come back after about five years.

Paul Beresford: The Minister will be aware that there is growing concern about the very little children, particularly from Asia and Africa, who are being brought in for the purposes of slavery and paedophile activity. They are also being brought in for what are called muti rituals, in which a child is killed for religious purposes. I heard what the Minister said, but his remarks do not apply to those children. We do not really know what we are facing in that regard, so what approach has he taken to obtaining the relevant statistics? When he has got them, will he be able to follow up and do whatever is required, including introducing primary legislation? Finally, what does he have in mind to tackle the problem that I have described? The answer that he has just given does not touch it.

Liam Byrne: I know that the hon. Gentleman has long taken an interest in these matters. We have to try to stop the trade in the first place, so the Bill, which introduces new offences to tackle people trafficking, is an important step forward. Issuing biometric visas helps us to lock down an identity to an individual. All that we are doing in the Bill, through our provisions for biometric immigration documents, is making sure that when a child applies for further leave to remain, or if a child is going to be here for some time, there is a cross-check against the original biometric information. That provides us not with a complete answer, but with another tool to help us discover where things are going wrong. The argument against the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Ashford is: why would we throw that alarm system away? Surely it is better to build tools up over time, rather than to lose them.
	Before I come on to the debate about section 11 of the Children Act 2004 and contact management, I should say that I understand the argument that the Refugee Children's Consortium has put forward, but it sounds a little strange for people to say that an insistence on contact may drive people underground, when at the moment we have no legal means of establishing contact at all. It is important to be able to contact children at regular intervals in order to know whether they are still in the country, where they are, whether they are being looked after properly, and, often, to acquaint them with the prospect that they will be going home again soon. I do not pretend that this is a complete answer, but it is another important tool that the immigration service would find useful.

Anthony Steen: I might be able to be helpful to the Minister, but I need an explanation. The Minister is familiar with the unaccompanied and separated children and refugee projection in the UK report Seeking Asylum Alone by Jacqueline Bhabha and Nadine Finch. The report shows that there is a difference between the Home Office figures for applications from unaccompanied and separated children and the statistics provided by the Refugee Council's children's panel. There are big discrepancies. In 2003 the Home Office figure was 2,800 and the Refugee Council's children's panel figure was 4,658. I wonder whether the Minister could indicate, bearing in mind that the Government grant only 6 per cent. of asylum applications from unaccompanied children a year94 per cent. get sent back

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. This is a very lengthy intervention. I think that the Minister can respond.

Liam Byrne: I would be more than happy to look at those discrepancies and to spend as much time with the hon. Gentleman as is required to try to get to the bottom of that matter.
	I was talking about the need to maintain contact arrangements with children, particularly when they do not have the right to be here. While honouring our commitment not to send children home when, in our view, the reception arrangements are not appropriate, it is important that we make arrangements to send them home as soon as it is safe to do so.
	I now come to the debate about section 11 of the Children Act 2004, which was where the hon. Member for Ashford started. This is an important area and we have spent some time reviewing it over the last 12 months. The nub of the problem is that the section 11 duty is not a simple duty. There are two parts to it. On the one hand there is a duty to safeguard the child, but on the other there is a duty to promote the child's well-being. The Department for Education and Skills guidance that comes with the duty is clear. It says that the duty is to make arrangements to ensure that
	children are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care.
	It also mentions:
	undertaking that role so as to enable those children to have optimum life chances and to enter adulthood successfully.
	The analogy with the police is helpful, because the police do not seek to deport people to third world countries. Although our advice is that, legally, we would win the casesI am sure that the refugee children's organisations have gone to some good lawyers to solicit advice and ascertain that there are no barriers to the Home Secretary setting removal directionsunfortunately, that is only part of the story. My great fear is that there would be a licence for judicial review to multiply. One can easily see that lawyers could file judicial reviews challenging decisions and arguing about a Home Office decision to deport somebody to the Democratic Republic of the Congo or parts of south-east Asia. I think that lawyers would question how that would be consistent with the duty to enable those children to have optimum life chances and enter adulthood successfully.
	Judicial review presents a serious problem: between January and March this year we received an average of 79 judicial reviews a week challenging enforcement activity. Some 94 per cent. were refused permission at the paper stage; none the less, one ongoing case has been running for 12 months and is on its second judicial review. Another case has been running for 14 months and is on its fourth judicial review, while a further case has been running for seven months and is on its third judicial review. People often try to exploit the judicial review process as a last-minute barrier to removal. I fear that the change to section 11 proposed by the hon. Member for Ashford would simply multiply those barriers.

Paul Rowen: While I understand what the Minister is telling us, he also says that it is not the intention to deport, or send home, children at least until they become adults. The provision would not apply after people reached the age of 18, so I do not understand why they cannot be subject to section 11 of the Children Act 2004 while they are children in the UK, which is all that we want.

Liam Byrne: We will often be making arrangements to send those people home. I simply do not understand how anyone cannot envisage that in judicial review proceedings, lawyers would make the argument that I cited. The proposal would lead to the multiplication of judicial review proceedings.
	This is a serious matter. It is important to go further than we have to date on the Border and Immigration Agency's duty to safeguard the welfare and livelihood of children. I said in Committee that we were keeping the matter under review. This summer the agency will publish its safeguarding strategy, which has been drawn up in close consultation with children's organisations. If the Bill is enacted, we will commission advice from the new inspectorate about how it can examine specifically the way in which the safeguarding strategy is implemented, so that we can ensure two things. The first is that the strategy is actually working, with policy being translated into practice. The Joint Committee on Human Rights, chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), has helpfully and successfully highlighted instance after instance when policy has not been translated into practice, which explains why the single inspectorate is important. The second is that hon. Members, and the wider public, have an assurance that the safeguarding duty is being implemented properly.
	We can make important changes. While the point about transparency is particularly important, we need to continue to listen to the argument about how a specific and appropriate legal obligation could underpin the safeguarding responsibilities of the border and immigration authority in a way that would not multiply the grounds for judicial review, but would ensure that hon. Members' ambitions were achieved.

Paul Rowen: I am listening carefully to the Minister's explanation. He cited an example involving the DRC. Given that that is an unsafe place, we would not deport anyone to that country, whether they were under 18 or over 18. The section 11 safeguards would not be affected in such circumstances. As I understand the way in which the system operates at the moment, an asylum seeker will not be sent back to an unsafe country.

Liam Byrne: That is absolutely right. I am trying to make the point that the section 11 duty is about not simply safeguarding, but enabling
	children to have optimum life chances and to enter adulthood successfully.
	As the hon. Gentleman knows, the DRC is the size of western Europe. There are places in the DRC to which the asylum and immigration tribunal has consistently found it very safe to return people. However, one can easily envisage how a cunning and clever lawyer could look at the part of the obligation that I cited and question how deporting a child from the world's fourth largest economy would promote optimum life chances or help that child to enter adulthood successfully. That is my fear. I do not think that anyone in the House would want us to remove defences in a way that prevents us from deporting people successfully. I genuinely think that hon. Members understand that if defences are weaker, Britain will become a target for child traffickers, and no one in the House wants that.
	We need to go further in ensuring that the Border and Immigration Agency has a stronger safeguarding obligation. I have sketched out a couple of ways in which I think that that can be brought about, but I remain open to the argument that a legal requirement should be put on the BIA, and a specific safeguarding element should be written into the law. I have yet to be convinced of that, and I do not think that the answer is in section 11 of the Children Act 2004but when the Bill goes to another place there will still be a case to be listened to and answered.

Damian Green: I start my response to this extremely good debate by apologising to my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen). I knew that he was going to be unavoidably detained elsewhere, but I had not realised for how short a time. If I had, I would have explored the issue in even greater depth. I assure him that I have now had one unprecedented experience this afternoon: sitting down at the end of a speech and being criticised for having made it too short. I am grateful to him for that. I can reassure him that his case was made most eloquently by the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore).
	To pick up on some of the Minister's points, I thought that he was pushing the envelope a little in saying that the Government were leading in Europe on the fight against trafficking. As he will be aware, the Government made the good move of signing up to the Council of Europe convention rather later than many Governments did. He was right to say that the Government do not want to ratify the convention until they can actually implement it, because we have had enough of gesture politics from the Government, both in that field and in others. I find it refreshing that the Minister is seeking to avoid that, but I point out, as he did, that seven countries have already ratified the convention, and when 10 countries ratify it it will come into force, so it is likely to come into force soon. At that point, the Government will presumably start implementing it. I thought it slightly ominous that he could not give the hon. Member for Hendon any reassurance about the timing, and could not say when the Government will be in a position to do something practical and useful in that respect.

Liam Byrne: That is merely down to an ambition for accuracy, rather than anything ominous.

Damian Green: I am grateful for that. Ambition for accuracy is a good thing in Ministers. The Minister's central point was about striking a balance between the protection of children and the protection of the interests of the Executive, which should not be tied down with judicial reviews. I found his argument on that point beguiling, but it was not convincing, because the Government have had a long time to think about the subject. They have known what the refugee children's organisations and others think about the issue for a long time. It is not wholly convincing for the Government to come before the House on Report, after a long Committee stage, and say, We're looking into the matter, and we may bring forward appropriate measures, but not those supported by both main Opposition parties and the organisations concerned. We'll come up with better measures during the later stages of the Bill. The Government have had a long time to consider the issue, and they have not yet found any other measures.
	I would hate to miss this opportunity to register the point that underlies all our discussions, which is that the current arrangements are not satisfactory. Indeed, what the Minister said this afternoon made it clear that he does not think that they are satisfactory either, and is looking for better ways to protect the rights of refugee children. If he cannot come up with concrete proposals at our final opportunity to discuss the Bill before it proceeds to another place, it is for other parties to submit such proposals to protect those children. That is what we have done, and we commend our proposals to the House.

Anthony Steen: Is not my hon. Friend's concernindeed, the Opposition's concernabout the fact that many thousands of unaccompanied minors arrive somehow or other in the country every year at airports and ports? I do not know how they get here. The Government are then expected to finance their care in local authorities, provide legal aid, food and shelterbut then what? Does my hon. Friend believe that something needs to be said about how we are going to manage better those thousands and thousands of children who are still pouring into Britain? Certainly we are not doing enough at the moment.

Damian Green: My hon. Friend is exactly right. One of the things that the Government have failed to do is make our borders secure enough so that people traffickers and other evil criminals are not encouraged to try to smuggle children into this country. That brings us on to a debate about our proposals for a border police force, which is the most effective way of minimising the effects of that particularly repellent crimebut I suspect that you would pull me up, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if I went too far down that road, because it is not strictly relevant to this group of amendments.
	Finally, the Minister talked about the European Commission and biometric documents for children. Whether the proposals are introduced by the Commission or by central Government, if biometrics for children do not workall the technical evidence suggests that they do notthose documents will be ineffective in protecting them. I am relaxed about whether the proposals come from the Commission or from the Home Office; they will not work in either case. In summary, I have not found the Minister's arguments that we should wait for the Government to come up with a convincing way of protecting children at all persuasive, however well he put them, so I commend the new clause to the House.
	 Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:
	 The House proceeded to a Division.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the Aye Lobby.

The House having divided: Ayes 226, Noes 294.

Question accordingly negatived.

New Clause 5
	  
	Verification of identity

'An immigration officer must ensure that any clothing covering the face, or part of the face, of an individual is removed for the purposes of verifying the identity of that individual upon entering or leaving the United Kingdom.'. [Philip Davies.]
	 Brought up, and read the First time.

Philip Davies: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Mr. Deputy Speaker): With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
	New clause 6 Limit on immigration
	'(1) The Secretary of State must by order specify the maximum number of non-European Union nationals who may be granted leave to remain in the United Kingdom each year.
	(2) An order under subsection (1) may contain such supplementary provisions as the Secretary of State considers necessary.
	(3) An order under subsection (1) may not be made unless a draft has been laid before and approved by resolution of each House of Parliament.'.
	New clause 7 Asylum seekers: provision of secure accommodation during application process
	'In Part I of the Immigration Act 1971 (c. 77) (regulation of entry into and stay in United Kingdom) after section 3 (general provision for regulation and control) insert
	3ZA Provision of secure accommodation during application process
	(1) An applicant for asylum to whom this section applies shall be detained in secure accommodation for a maximum of 90 days while his application for asylum is processed.
	(2) At the expiry of the period of 90 days specified in subsection (1), the Secretary of State shall find alternative accommodation for the applicant until such time as his application has been processed.
	(3) This section does not apply to an applicant who is
	(a) under the age of 18, or
	(b) the guardian of an applicant who is under the age of 18.'.
	New clause 8 Leave to remain: spouses and partners
	'(1) The Immigration Act 1971 (c. 77) is amended as follows.
	(2) After section 3(2) (immigration rules), insert
	(2A) Nothing in the rules made under paragraph (2) shall prevent a person being granted leave to remain in the United Kingdom for the purposes of marriage or civil partnership providing that he is
	(a) aged 21 years or more, and
	(b) of full capacity.'.

Philip Davies: New clause 5 would require an immigration officer to ensure that any clothing covering the face or part of it was removed to verify the identity of an individual on entering or leaving the United Kingdom. I am disappointed that I need to table the amendment, as most people would imagine that what I described would happen as a matter of course under existing legislation. However, there have been a couple of examples only recently where it appears that people suspected of crimesin one case, terrorist offenceshave actually fled the country disguised by a veil. Surely, if I were to present myself to the immigration authorities wearing a motorcycle helmet, for example, I would be asked to remove it. Is it not staggering that one of the chief suspects for the murder of PC Sharon Beshenivsky in Bradford is reported to have fled the country wearing a veil and that one of the bombersfortunately, failed bombersof 21 July is also alleged to have fled the country wearing a veil?

Stephen Pound: I am following the hon. Gentleman's argument with great interest, but I remind the House that he has used the word alleged. Does he have any hard evidence to confirm that anyone has ever fled this country disguised in the sort of face covering that he has just described?

Philip Davies: Until the police finally trace those people, track them down, catch them and bring them to justice, we will not know for sure whether they did. The likelihood iscertainly according to the West Yorkshire policethat the chief suspect in the Sharon Beshenivsky murder case left the country in that way. That is what the police told me.
	My new clause 5 is simply common sense. Surely someone cannot be checked for purposes of identification unless any clothing is removed from their face. As I said, it is very disappointing that I needed to table this amending provision, but it appears that immigration officers around the country have been tied up in some kind of political correctness, feeling that they cannot ask people to remove their veils lest they be accused of some sort of racism or of attacking certain ethnic minority groups. That is clearly unacceptable, so my new clause is designed to help those immigration officers by making it clear that nothing will be done to prevent them from doing their job.

David Davies: Does my hon. Friend think it interesting that, from a religious perspective, many Muslim countries actually ban the veilTurkey is demonstrating that at the momentand that nothing in the Koran says that the full facial veil should be worn, merely that women should be modestly attired?

Philip Davies: As ever, my hon. Friend makes a valid point. My new clause does not specifynor would I want it tothat people should not be allowed to wear a veil if they so wish. If they want to wear it, they should be allowed to do so, as we have enough of a nanny state as it is without telling people what they can and cannot wear. Surely, however, for purposes of identification at a point of entry, the power in my new clause should be taken as read.

Liam Byrne: In all the debates that I have heard on the Floor of the House and in Committee, I have yet to hear a more misguided mischaracterisation of poor practice than I have just heard. I am sad that the hon. Gentleman did not have the chance in Committee to listen to the praise that was lavished on the front-line immigration service and the work that it does. Will the hon. Gentleman further consider the remarks that he has just madeand those that he is about to makeand temper them, bearing in mind the extraordinary job that the immigration service does for this country?

Philip Davies: I am afraid that the Minister's indignation is unjustified. No one is saying that immigration officers do not do a good job, often under very difficult circumstances; I am merely highlighting the point that at least two people, it would appear, have fled the country in the unbelievable circumstances that they were wearing a veil. They were male suspects for serious offences leaving the country wearing a veil. Whether the vast majority of immigration officers do or do not do a good jobI am sure that the Minister is right and they dothere should surely be something to prevent serious criminals from leaving the country in such ridiculous circumstances. If the new clause would prevent the chief suspect in a serious terrorist offence or in the murder of a police officer carrying out their duty from leaving the country, that must surely be a good thing.

William McCrea: Surely the Minister was not suggesting that the hon. Gentleman was attacking immigration officers for carrying out their duty. Is he not trying to assist those officers in protecting this country and continuing to do an excellent job?

Philip Davies: The hon. Gentleman is entirely right. My new clause aims to help immigration officers so that they do not feel that they are being put in a difficult position, and so that no one can accuse them of some kind of political correctness or misguided racism just because they are asking people to identify themselves. They are already doing an excellent job, and I hope that the new clause would help them to do it better.

John Hemming: I am slightly mystified by the hon. Gentleman's speech. I have found, through speaking to veil-wearing women in my constituency, that when they go through entrance and exit ports they go into a room, remove their veil and show their face to a female immigration officer. That is what happens at the moment, so I am a bit mystified about the merit of reinforcing that by introducing a provision that simply does the same thing.

Philip Davies: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. In some respects, he makes my point for me. I am sure that on some occasions that does already happen. My new clause merely insists that immigration officers must ensure that any such clothing be removed. That is clearly not happening on every occasion because two people suspected of serious offences have left the country disguised by a veil. My new clause would not affect what should be standard practice; it would merely ensure that that practice became compulsory.

Liam Byrne: I am still slightly bamboozled about which bit of red tape the hon. Gentleman is referring to. Is it schedule 2 to the Immigration Act 1971? It explicitly states:
	An immigration officer may examine any person who is embarking or seeking to embark in the United Kingdom for the purpose of determining...his identity.
	Or is he perhaps referring to the instructions reissued to front-line staff this year, which reiterated the guidance that was already available? They state:
	Passengers wearing veils or other face coverings are to be asked to remove the covering in order that they may be identified as the rightful holder of their passport or travel document.
	Which bit of red tape is the hon. Gentleman arguing is getting in the way?

Philip Davies: The Minister referred to the word may. My new clause uses the word must. There is a distinct difference between the two. Clearly, some problem arose that allowed those two people to leave the country without their identity being checked. My new clause requires that people's identity be checked whether they are entering or leaving the country. In the two cases to which I referred, the people happened to be leaving the country. If the Minister thinks that that should happen anyway, I take it that he will have no objection to supporting my new clause, which merely insists that it must happen.
	The purpose of new clause 6 is to impose an annual limit on the number of people who may stay in the country. This proposal is being made against a backdrop of many people having completely lost faith in the immigration system. They feel that the whole system is getting out of hand. We are now at the stage at which one migrant a minute is coming into this country. That equates to the population of a city the size of Birmingham every two or three years. The vast majority of the public know that that is unsustainable, yet that fact appears to have escaped the notice of the Government, who have allowed such mass immigration to take place on an unprecedented scale. The purpose of my new clause is to impose an annual limit so that people can have confidence that there is some control over the number of people coming into the country.

William Cash: My hon. Friend might be able to help me. His new clause refers to imposing a
	maximum number of non-European Union nationals.
	Is there a special reason why the provision should exempt European Union nationals in this context?

Philip Davies: I am grateful to my eagle-eyed hon. Friend for noticing that the new clause has a European dimension. He is absolutely right; the elephant in the room is the fact that it refers to non-European Union nationals. The fact of the matter is that our relationship with the European Union allows free movement of people, which means that we have no ability to deal with them. As my hon. Friend knows, I would wish us to be out of the European Union so that we could impose a limit. I think that he will agree that at least the proposal is a step in the right direction.

William Cash: My hon. Friend will recall my amendment to the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, which he and the whole Conservative party supported in both the Commons and the Lords by adopting it and providing Tellers. That amendment would have enabled us to override the European Communities Act 1972 and require the judiciary to give effect to that override. I trust that his amendment in no way implies that we are resiling from the principle advocated in my amendment.

Philip Davies: As my hon. Friend knows, I enthusiastically supported his excellent amendment to the Bill. Had it not been voted down by the Government, it would no doubt have been reflected in my new clause. Given the situation, however, my new clause will have to deal only with non-EU nationals. As my view is that we should be out of the European Union, we could deal with the issue separately.

Stewart Hosie: The hon. Gentleman might not be aware that Scotland's population had been falling seriously over many decades. In the past few years, that has turned aroundthe population of Dundee has risen over the past year, Glasgow's over the past two years and Scotland's over the past three years. That has been due mainly to inward migration, primarily, though not exclusively, from eastern Europe, and has been a generally successful, useful and beneficial experience for all concerned. In those circumstances, why would I want to support his amendment? As for his views on the European Union, the free movement of people is tied in with the free movement of capital and free trade within the European Union and the eurozone. Why on earth would he take such a hard-line position against free trade and something that benefits the economies and peoples of the whole Union?

Philip Davies: I am not against free trade. I believe in free trade agreements, but not in lots of regulation. I am happy for as many people to go to Dundee as wish to do so, if that is what the hon. Gentleman wants. I am sure that the annual limit that the Secretary of State would have to impose would reflect the fact that he wants more immigrants in Dundee. I am sure that my constituents would be more than happy for a large proportion of the annual limit imposed to go to Dundee.

Greg Knight: Is my hon. Friend arguing for an overall annual limit for non-EU nationals, or is he hoping for a specific limit for each non-EU country?

Philip Davies: My new clause would impose an overall limit for non-EU countries. There is only a certain number that is sustainable, that will be accepted by the public, that will not cause a huge amount of disturbance in our local communities and that will not disrupt community cohesion. The aim of the new clause is to have a sustainable level of immigration, which people in this country will accept and which they do not feel is damaging community relations.

Sally Keeble: On the issue of leave to remain, will the hon. Gentleman confirm whether he is also referring to people who come to study? Universities want both easier access for people studying and for them to be able to remain to work afterwards. They see that as part of building the future economy of this country.

Philip Davies: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that point. I would not wish to deny universities the income that they get from foreign students. My new clause relates specifically to people given leave to remain in this country, which is a slightly different issue.

Stephen Pound: rose

David Davies: rose

Philip Davies: I have limited time left and I still wish to refer to two new clauses. I have tried to be as generous as possible in allowing interventions, but I must now make progress.
	The purpose of new clause 7 is to ensure that people wishing to claim asylum in this country are detained in secure accommodation for a maximum of 90 days while their application for asylum is processed. At the end of those 90 days, alternative accommodation would be found for them. The new clause exempts people under 18 and their guardians, because it would probably not be right for them to be detained. We have been very generous in this country. We have a tradition of allowing people who genuinely claim asylum to stay, and we are rightly proud of that tradition. However, over the past decade in particular, our kindness and hospitality have been abused on an unprecedented level, much to the disgust of many of our constituents who wish something to be done about it.
	When I visited the immigration and nationality directorate in Leeds, it struck me as unbelievable that any failed asylum seeker ever left the country. The hoops that the authorities are expected to go through to track down failed asylum seekers are beyond belief, and it would undoubtedly help them if people claiming asylum were in secure accommodation. They would be well treated and well fedno one would want the accommodation to be like a prisonbut the authorities would know where they were. Once their applications had been processed, those with valid reasons for claiming asylum would be welcomed into the local community and given the support that they deserved and needed, while the authorities could ensure that those who were here under false pretences left the country immediately, rather than having to chase around wondering where they were.
	There is no reason why people who are genuinely fleeing persecution in their own countries would not accept decent secure accommodation in this country while their applications are processed. That is not inhumane; it is merely a common-sense way of keeping tabs on people so that those found not to have a valid claim can be sent out of the country, much to the satisfaction and relief of many of our constituents.

Liam Byrne: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He is being extremely generous with his time.
	Although the number of asylum seekers is at its lowest level not since 1997, but since 1991, the estimated cost of the hon. Gentleman's proposals would require an extra 5,000 detention beds at a start-up cost of about 750 million, with running costs of about 158 million a year. When we proposed increasing the immigration policing budget by 100 million a month or two ago, the hon. Gentleman's party abstained. Where would he get the money for the new detention spaces?

Philip Davies: I have the advantage of not having to speak from the Front Bench. As I said earlier, I would very much like us to leave the European Union. The Minister may not know that that would save us 14 billion a yearmore than enough to build secure accommodation.

Greg Knight: Does my hon. Friend accept that finding the money would not require such drastic action as leaving the European Union? Had the Government not given away part of the EU rebate won by Lady Thatcher, it would have provided plenty of money for detention places.

Philip Davies: As ever, my right hon. Friend is right. According to a survey conducted by the TaxPayers' Alliance, the public believe that a quarter of all Government expenditure is wasted, although I suspect that that is a conservative estimate. I am sure that there is plenty of money availableand, in addition, a large amount would be saved because it would be unnecessary to chase people around the country.

Stephen Pound: The interest shown in this debate may be a reflection of the seriousness of the subject that the hon. Gentleman has raised. May I return him to new clause 6 and ask him what figure he proposes for the maximum number of non-EU nationals to be granted indefinite leave to remain? Will he also answer the question asked so perceptively by the very talented right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) and tell us which country they would come from? If the hon. Gentleman came up with the figure of, say, half a million, would it matter if every one of those people came from Pakistan, for example? But perhaps he has other ways of responding to the question.

Philip Davies: I am, as ever, grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his contribution to the debate. The new clause states that the number is to be decided annually by the Secretary of State. We would consider the situation at the time, but my guess is that we could sustain immigration to this country of about 50,000 a yearcertainly no more. That figure is much lower than it is at present. On the hon. Gentleman's second point, it would not matter to me which country the immigrants came from; the issue is how much immigration our country can sustain, both economically and culturally. Immigration puts pressure on housingabout one in three new houses is built merely to deal with immigration. It puts pressure on our public services, schools and hospitals, as well as on the taxpayer, so we need a sustainable figure.

Liam Byrne: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way to me again as I want to press an important point. From the figures published recently by the Office for National Statistics, he will know that 145,000 people came from the European Union in 2005, so if EU migrants were uncapped under his proposals there might be a bit of a problem. No cap for EU migrants is significant because 48 per cent. of net migration is from the EU.

Philip Davies: The Minister is absolutely right, which is one of the reasons I want Britain to regain control of its borders. To do so we need to leave the European Union, but that is a debate for another day. However, I agree with the Minister that the scale of immigration from Europe, especially eastern Europe, is colossal and I want us to regain control of our borders to deal with it.

James Clappison: Does not the Minister's point cut both ways? Since 1997, there has in fact been a substantial increase in net migration from non-EU countries as a result of Government policy, in large measure, to extend work permits that were not granted before 1997.

Philip Davies: My hon. Friend is absolutely right and I pay tribute to all his work on the issue, highlighting the scandal of the level of immigration to this country.
	New clause 8 would increase the age at which someone could enter the UK through marriage from 18 to 21. The hon. Member for Keighley (Mrs. Cryer), who is my constituency neighbour, has done much hard work on that issue, especially forced marriage. Although increasing the age from 18 to 21 would not necessarily stop people being brought into the country for forced marriages, it could help to get rid of that scandalous practice, which is used to obtain entry to the UK. The new clause would help to reduce immigration, as well as helping to deal with the horrific practice of forced marriage, about which the Minister, like the hon. Member for Keighley is also concerned.
	My new clauses are common-sense proposals that would instil an awful lot of the British public's confidence in our immigration system that has been distinctly lacking over the past 10 years or so. Even if the Minister will not agree to my proposals, I hope that he will at least look carefully at the issues that they raise, understand that they are of great concern to the British people and try to find a way of addressing some, if not all, of them.

Liam Byrne: This has been an extraordinary debate, and a nice way to completeI fearReport.
	Some of the interventions were helpful, especially on the question of limits. We have been watching the debate among Opposition Members on that subject for some time. It was at spring conference, back in 2003, that the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith), who is not in the Chamber, called for quotas on refugees. This is real action was, I think, what he said. Of course, the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) threw out that policy some time ago. However, the Conservative party went on to propose quotas in 2005. Although that policy was proposed two years ago, we have yet to hear precisely what the numbers would be. As has been pointed out, it is very difficult under the current arrangements to set a limit on EU migration. The fact that EU net inflow is 48 per cent. of UK net migration raises the question whether any attempt to set a limit would be meaningful or meaningless.

Greg Knight: Although it is all very interesting hearing the Minister speculate about what my party's policy might or might not be, will he focus on the real issue by telling us what happens in practice? He read out earlier the guidance under which immigration officers operate, but what happens in practice when someone who is asked to remove a veil refuses to do so?

Liam Byrne: The answer is simple: they are escorted into a room and an immigration officer will take any step that he or she judges to be necessary to verify their identity. The options do not stop simply at asking someone to remove their veil; if necessary, we will fingerprint them. That is precisely how we discovered more than 200 failed asylum seekers trying to leave the country. We did so through tougher exit controls.
	The right hon. Gentleman would be right if he were to point out that that kind of operation would become much more difficult if the Conservative party were to follow through on its commitment to shut down the British identity infrastructure. It will be interesting to discover whether the Conservative party supports the Bill this evening. Key measures in it are those to introduce compulsory biometric identity cards for foreign nationals.
	We know from a letter sent by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) to the Cabinet Secretary, Gus O'Donnell, in February that the Government are now formally on noticeI believe that that was the phrase usedof the Conservative party position to shut down the national identity infrastructure and that it is now to carry any associated risk or contingent liability. Let me tell Members about one of those associated risks and contingent liabilities: this country will be left defenceless in the fight against illegal immigration, whether that defence is at our border controls or at our border posts abroad when we issue biometric visas to those applying to come to this country for the first time.

Damian Green: rose

Liam Byrne: I sense that the hon. Gentleman wishes to say something.

Damian Green: The suggestion that my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) talked about abolishing the biometric infrastructure traduces what he said in that letter. The Minister is invoking the novel constitutional doctrine that if a Government sign some long-term, expensive ill-advised contracts, another party would not be allowed to carry out its manifesto pledges even if elected. He is talking nonsense on that point.
	However, I want the Minister to return to the subject of EU immigration. Ten minutes ago he described the level of immigration from within the EU as a problem. Does he really mean that?

Liam Byrne: I do not think that I described the issue of EU immigration as a problem, because it has proved to be of substantial benefit to this country. The hon. Gentleman cannot get away from the point that his right hon. Friend's letter was extremely clear that his party would switch off the national identity infrastructure of this country, despite the evidence that we have heard from people such as Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, who I think is chairing his party's international security and policy commission, and Lord Stevens, who has consistently spoken in favour of identity technology and who is chairing another of the Conservative party's policy commissionsthe one on border controls. The right hon. Gentleman wrote that in his letter also despite the evidence of people such as Sir Andrew Green of Migrationwatch UK, who has looked at the question carefully, and of the business community and of trade unions. All of them have said that if we are to stop illegal journeys and illegal jobs we must lock down people's identity. I hope that the Conservative party will follow through on any decision it votes for tonight by either underlining or withdrawing its commitment to shut down Britain's identity infrastructure.
	I want to highlight for the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) some advice that was given by Michael Portillo. He said in 2004 that he doubted whether any Tory Government would be as rigorous in capping immigrant numbers as they claimed, given that no previous one had taken effective action to arrest the flow. It is absolutely right that we have to make sure that only those
	 It being Six o'clock, Mr. Deputy Speaker  put the Question already proposed from the Chair pursuant to Order [5 February].
	 Question accordingly negatived.
	Mr. Deputy Speaker  then proceeded to put the Questions necessary to dispose of the business to be concluded at that hour.

Clause 5
	  
	Registration Regulations

Amendment made: No. 16, in page 4, line 29, at end insert
	'(4A) Regulations under subsection (1)(b) may not make provision the effect of which would be to require a person to carry a biometric immigration document at all times.'. [Mr. Byrne.]

Clause 31
	  
	Automatic Deportation

Amendment proposed: No. 34, in page 16, line 6, leave out from 'whom' to end of line and insert 'the condition under subsection (2) applies.'. [Paul Rowen.]
	 Question put, That the amendment be made:
	 The House divided: Ayes 59, Noes 466.

Question accordingly negatived.

Clause 37
	  
	Interpretation

Amendments made: No. 17, in page 19, line 24, leave out '(whether or not' and insert '(unless'.
	No. 18, in page 19, line 24, at end insert
	'or any part of it (of whatever length)'.
	No. 19, in page 19, line 40, leave out '(whether or not' and insert '(unless'.
	No. 20, in page 19, line 40 , at end insert 'or any part of it'. [Mr. Heppell.]

Clause 38
	  
	Consequential amendments

Amendments made: No. 21, in page 20, line 18, leave out '(whether or not' and insert 'unless'.
	No. 22, in page 20, line 19 , after 'sentence', insert 'or any part of it'. [Mr. Heppell.]

Clause 43
	  
	Search for evidence of nationality

Amendments made: No. 23, in page 23, line 40, leave out second 'or'.
	No. 24, in page 23, line 41, at end insert ', or
	(iii) premises on which the individual was, immediately before being arrested.'.
	No. 25, in page 24, line 19, leave out subsection (6). [Mr. Heppell.]

Clause 44
	  
	Seizure of nationality documents

Amendment made: No. 26, in page 24, line 28, after '43', insert
	'or [Search for evidence of nationality: other premises]'. [Mr. Heppell.]

Clause 56
	  
	Commencement

Amendment made: No. 27, in page 29, line 19, at end insert
	'or whose sentences are suspended at the time of commencement;'. [Mr. Heppell.]
	 Order for Third Reading read.

Liam Byrne: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
	Before I come to my substantive remarks, I want to thank the members of the Public Bill Committee, who ensured that the Bill received the right level of scrutiny and deliberation. The changes that we have brought forward this afternoon demonstrate that the Committee was an important and useful part of the process. I also thank the witnesses who were summoned to give evidence to the Public Bill Committee. Often the evidence became a foundation for a lot of the debate that followed. That is the kind of constitutional innovation for which the Leader of the House deserves some credit. The Bill shows how important the changes to Committees have become. I also thank the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, North (Joan Ryan) for the work that she has done on the Bill, and the work that she did in Committee and during the deliberations leading up to the Bill. I would have been lost without her.
	On Second Reading, I said that the Bill is one of five reforms that we are making to the immigration system on the back of the changes announced by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary last year. The changes are already bearing fruit. At our overseas border we now turn back about two jumbo jets-worth of potential illegal immigrants each week. Some 17,000 people were stopped on the other side of the channel last year alone. The number of asylum seekers is now at its lowest level since 1991. Last year, for the first time, we removed more failed asylum seekers than came into the country. As the Prime Minister said this afternoon, the number of foreign national prisoners being deported is now up, and up substantially. Last year, we tracked down and deported somebody every eight minutes who had no right to be in this country.
	These changes are important, but they are not enough and they will not be enough for the future. In the future, we will need to do more. As we enter an era in which global migration will become faster and faster, our border defences and border security will need to be still more robust. That is why we are bringing forward such a radical overhaul of the immigration system. A cross-Government strategy brings together all aspects of public services to sharpen our attack on illegal immigration at home and abroad. Up to 100 million extra in resources is going into immigration policing.
	New technology is being put in place to allow the biometric screening of visa applicants to be carried out in 67 posts. By the beginning of next year, that technology will be in place in border posts covering three quarters of the world's population. New international alliances are being negotiated to help to develop stronger global co-operation on this global issue. The Bill is designed to ensure that having doubled the number of our warranted staff, they will have the right powers to do their job, to keep our borders secure and to remove those who have no right to be here.
	At the heart of the Bill is a series of measures to help us to deter, detect, detain, restrict and deport illegal immigrants. To deter more, we propose to strengthen our borders and to give our border security officers new powers. We propose new powers to prosecute human smugglers and people traffickers wherever on earth they perpetrate the offence. We propose new powers to confiscate the proceeds of organised immigration crime, which is responsible for about three quarters of the illegal immigration into this country. To detect more of those who are here illegally, we propose compulsory biometric identity cards for foreign nationals, so that those who exploit fake documents can be uncovered and denied access to the labour market and public services.
	However, we are providing important protections. We listened to the concerns of hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard), and introduced prohibitions on any regulations that might require someone to carry a card at all times.
	Nevertheless, the measures that we propose will allow us to eliminate the insecure 20th-century documents that are used to provide evidence of a person's eligibility to work or benefits. We will phase in new secure documents that are easier to check and harder to forge. We also propose new powers of search and the ability to share information with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs to find those who are here illegally or who employ people illegally.
	To detain and restrict more people, we propose new powers to put those whom we are unable to remove on limited leave subject to reporting and residency restrictions. To deport more people, we propose new powers to deport automatically people who have committed offences in this country and breached our bond of trust. Foreign nationals who abuse our hospitality by seriously breaking the law will not be allowed to stay in the UK.
	The Bill also includes important measures that are designed to underpin the long-term improvement of the Border and Immigration Agency. It will give the agency new flexibility to raise resources from abroad so that it can do the job with which it has been tasked. There are also new provisions to provide stronger and more independent oversight to ensure that those resources are used as effectively as possible to keep our borders secure.
	The cornerstone of our strategy to combat illegal immigration is simple: a plan to stop illegal journeys and illegal jobs. At the heart of our endeavour is the simple ambition of using new biometric technology that will allow us to lock down with confidence the identity of an individual. The technology will be used first when we issue a visa; secondly, when an individual boards a plane, train or boat for Britain; thirdly, at our border; and, fourthly, when people go about their business in Britain. That is why we have consistently argued that it would be an error to shut down the national identity infrastructure.
	It was unfortunate that the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden, who is not in the Chamber, wrote a letter to the Cabinet Secretary in which he promised to shut down that system, because that will be a vital defence against illegal immigration. We think that migration will grow, which means that the risk of illegal immigration will surely not decrease, but increase. In the face of such future pressure, a plan simply to restructure managers here at home would be about as robust as sandcastles on the seashore. If Conservative Members support the Bill, I hope that they will take the logical next step by revoking their commitment to shutting down the UK's identity system. If they do not, people who are being kind will accuse them of having a muddled policy, while their critics will say that they are voting for one thing, but committing themselves to another. They would leave themselves open to the accusation that their immigration policy had become a shambles.
	I hope that the House will pass this important Bill, which has benefited from the scrutiny that hon. Members have given it over the past few months. Let me finish with a word of warning: the pressure on our borders will grow unless we take steps to secure them today. That is why the Bill and the changes that the Home Secretary is putting through are important. We need to ensure that our front-line staff have the powers that they need to do the job that they love. I commend the Bill to the House and wish it a speedy passage in another place.

Damian Green: I start by echoing the thanks that the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality expressed to the staff on the Public Bill Committee. In particular, I thank the witnesses. Hearing from expert witnesses at the start of Committee is a useful innovation, and all of us learned many things from them. In fact, I would have preferred it if some of the insight that the witnesses gave us in Committee were better reflected in the changes that subsequently appeared in the Bill. The Government have indeed made some changes on the basis of amendments that we suggested in Committee, and that is entirely commendable, but I still feel that some of the things the Minister has just said, particularly about biometrics, fly in the face of the expert evidence that we heard in Committee. However, that institutional change to the way in which Bills are scrutinised should be preserved and, if possible, extended in future.
	The Bill, in its current state, has to be put in the right context; it is one of a plethora of immigration and asylum Bills that the Government have introduced, and it is sensible to reflect, at this stage of its progress, on whether this one will be remembered in any way and whether it will make any significant difference. On Second Reading, I described it as a rag-baga collection of measures with no core, central theme or guiding intellectual thrust to it. If anything, it was made even more of a rag-bag by the introduction, at a very late stage, of the inspectorate. That is an important step forward and one that, in principle, we do not oppose, but the idea has not received sufficient scrutiny as it was introduced in a series of new clauses well after Second Reading. Our wish is that the inspectorate will be properly independent. We know that public confidence in the system is rightly very low, and if recent evidence is to be believed, it is getting lower. A properly independent inspector could make some difference to that, but unfortunately that is not what is provided for in the Bill as it stands. I am sure that that will be a fruitful area for scrutiny and change in another place.
	From looking at the Bill as a whole, it is difficult to improve on the analysis of the Immigration Advisory Service, which makes the following point in its briefing for this debate:
	The Bill...will become the fifth piece of major immigration legislation...since the Government assumed office in...ten years, excluding the Special Immigration Appeals and Human Rights Act. The list of repeals and amendments to previous legislation (some of which was never even implemented) tells its own story and has led to confusion and complication even among the judiciary.
	That is exactly right. The Government have thought too little and legislated too often on the subject. Too often, legislating has been a displacement activity for Ministers who feel that they are not on top of the immigration and asylum process.

William Cash: I am not trying to tempt my hon. Friend into agreeing with me on the Floor of the HouseI am not trying to make my point in that waybut does he not have some sympathy with my continuing concern about, indeed campaign on, the Human Rights Act 1998? It presents serious problems, for example in relation to deportation, and there is no short and easy answer, save to repeal the Act. That would ensure that we got the results that we want when dealing with matters as serious as those that we are discussing.

Damian Green: It is clear that there are problems with the dispensation for deportation. Given what has happened in the past few weeks, I am sure that there is consensus in that area between the Government and us. My hon. Friend will know that our right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has suggested a British Bill of Rights, part of which would entrench the human rights that as British citizens we need and deserve, while ensuring at the same time that problems in the existing legislative regime can be dealt with. My hon. Friend will agree that that is not an easy task, but it is an essential one in a world as dangerous and difficult as the one that we face. He is right to point out that the legislation passed in the past 10 years has not, on the whole, been helpful, either in promoting human rights among vulnerable people or in giving proper protection to the population as a whole. That is certainly a matter that needs to be addressed by a future Conservative Government.
	To return to the Bill, it was instructive that throughout our proceedings, particularly on Second Reading, Labour Members attacked it from both left and right. It was clearly unsatisfactory both to those who think that the Government have been led down the path of attempting to appease right-wing newspapers and those who thought that they should go further down that path. Underlying the unease of Government Members is the fact that a lot of the immigration debate in this country is now about delivery. It is not about the minutiae of legislation, important though they are, but about whether structures have been set up that can give us both effective control of our borders and the processes that will clear up the huge backlog of people who are in this country but who have no right to be herea backlog that has been allowed to build up over the past 10 years. The characteristic of the current regime at the Home Officewhen the Minister noted wistfully that he had been immigration Minister for more than a year, I could tell that he was yearning for movement, and I wish him well over the next few weeksis to talk tough, to legislate often, but to deliver little. That verdict came through very clearly on Second Reading from Members on both sides of the House.
	Looking ahead, we must consider whether anything will change. Will the Bill change anything much? Will the future Bills that were promised change anything much? I fear not. We know that we will soon have yet another Home Secretary. The path is instructive. The first Labour Home Secretary lasted four years; the second one, three years; the third one, two years; the fourth one, one year. As everyone speculates about who is going to take over as the next Home Secretary in July, I have to point out that at the current rate of progress, it will all be over by Christmas, because he will have about six months in the job before we get another one.
	There is a hole in the Bill and a hole at the heart of the Government's immigration policy, because they have not protected our borders properly. The Minister waxed lyrical about biometric technology and said that it is the solution. He almost said explicitly a few minutes ago that it was what we needed, and that is the cornerstone or building block of everything that the Government are doing. It flies in the face of evidence from around the world, and of the expert evidence that we heard in Committee, that blind faith in biometric technology will not result in the solution that the Minister claims. Our practical solution of a border police force and specialist policing to deal with what goes on both at our borders and in illegal employment is a much more effective, holistic solution to the problems that we continue to face with a porous immigration system, in which our borders are not properly protected.
	The biggest problem that the Minister faces is delivery. The second biggest problem is the fact that the inspectorate that he has established to examine the various new structures that he is setting up lacks proper powers. I suspect that the final verdict on the Bill will be that it is not destined to change much or to make any significant improvements in our failing immigration system. We regret that. We have not opposed the principle of the Bill, because it contains useful elements. Some of the changes that we were able to make in Committee will make it slightly more useful, but the Bill fails to rise to the enormous challenge of improving Britain's immigration system.
	The best that one can hope for is that the Government do a little better when yet another immigration Bill comes along in the next Session of Parliament. There has been a weary procession of immigration Bills from the Government, which have coincided with a complete collapse of public confidence in our immigration system. The public are right: the Government have failed the country on immigration.

Frank Field: Tomorrow we reach the end of the beginning of the long goodbye to a Labour Prime Minister who has been more successful than any Prime Minister we have had. Last week, one of the polling organisations, instead of thrusting questions in front of the sample, asked open-ended questions about the voters' biggest disappointment with his 10 years of stewardship as Prime Minister. Whereas we in the House would probably say Iraq, they said, by a clear majority, that he had failed to protect our borders.
	It is therefore a particular disappointment for me and for my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) that we did not discuss the amendment that my hon. Friend had tabled, which would allow us to reconnect with voters on the very issue with which the Bill dealsthe establishment of a commission to report not only on labour market needs in respect of immigration, but on the social impact, which in some areas has been so devastating that it is difficult to describe.
	By the time we reach the final goodbye to our Prime Minister, I hope that the Bill will have been considered in another place and that the amendments we could not move for reasons of time will be considered there and will come back to us, so that that major charge against the stewardship of our current Prime Minister is answered, not in the distant future but in the Bill itself.

Paul Rowen: I echo the sentiments of previous speakers. First, I thank the members of staff who worked on the Public Bill Committee for their assistance with our amendments, and the witnesses. I agree with hon. Members who said that the innovation of hearing witnesses before we started consideration of the Bill has greatly strengthened our deliberations.
	The Bill is the fifth immigration Bill that the Government have introduced in the past 10 years. I agree with the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) that in many respects it is a curate's egg. I doubt very much whether it will deal with the real immigration issues which, as the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) said, people outside feel and understand. I am extremely disappointed that we did not have the opportunity to discuss the right hon. Gentleman's new clause 11. From the earlier discussion on other clauses, it is clear that there is a great need for such a commission, which would substantially strengthen the workings of our immigration system. I hope that when the Bill is considered in the other place, the new clause can be inserted.
	When the Government introduced the Bill, they had given immigration officers a range of new powers. During the proceedings on the Bill, we questioned them about that and sought assurances with regard to the introduction of PACE. We had an assurance from the Minister that regulations would be put in place and training instituted.
	Like the hon. Member for Ashford, I am disappointed that we have not had a broader debate on the Floor of the House about the need for a borders agency. Our immigration policy needs to be not only firm and fair but properly co-ordinatedthat has been lacking in the pastand a borders force could have achieved that. At the time, the Minister said that one of the reasons the Government did not want to do that was the need for stability in the Home Office, yet immediately afterwards they split it. It seems that there can be major change in that respect, but nothing can be done about making the organisation internally more effective.
	Liberal Democrats do not oppose biometric visas. They are a meansbut not, as the Minister says, the only or the main meansto control and regulate immigration flows. We sought assurances on the level of information that would be recorded biometrically and non-biometrically, and it is disappointing that we did not get them. We should have a system similar to that in the USA and Australia, which would be a fair way of operating.
	We have raised questions about young asylum seekers. The Minister said that although he will not incorporate section 11 of the Children Act 2004, he will ponder what other regulations should be put in place. I found that part of his commitment very unsatisfactory and unwelcome.
	The Minister mentioned the 100 million of new resources that will be channelled into putting the Bill into operation. It is disappointing that the bulk of that money will be raised from decent, ordinary visitors coming to this country. We have moved away from the principle of ensuring that the visa service paid its way towards a system whereby visas will pay for the immigration service, which is not what was intended.
	There are a large number of policies to do with enforcement and seizure. Earlier, I raised concerns about the blanket use of those procedures. We already have a problem with perception and community cohesion. As I know from talking to people in my constituency, people of black and ethnic minority origins feel victimised and picked on. That is a major concern. I hope that these powers will be regulated and monitored.
	In summary, the Bill will not solve the inherent problems of our immigration service. It remains to be seen whether the new inspector and the new borders force will deliver. That is where change needs to be brought about. Those of us who deal weekly with immigration issues know that we do not need to bring in new laws to make our borders firm and fair but that we need to ensure that what exists is properly implemented. I hope that a new immigration office and a new Home Secretary will not mean yet another immigration Bill. What is required is stability and further discussion to ensure that some of the ideas that have been rejected during the Bill's progress are reconsidered and put in place.

Neil Gerrard: It is a relatively rare experience for a suggestion that I make on a Home Office Bill to be taken up and accepted by Ministers, so I am genuinely grateful to the Minister for inserting Government amendment No. 16. That change was needed to ensure that the Bill reflected what Ministers said was going to happen.
	The same approach would help if applied to clause 16, which deals with reporting and residence conditions. We debated that on Second Reading and some detailed discussion took place in Committee. Current drafting means that reporting and residence conditions could be applied to almost anybody who does not have indefinite leave to remain. In Committee, the Minister gave some assurances that he expected the clause to apply in relatively limited circumstances. However, as the provision is drafted, it would be open to a future Minister to interpret it differently from my hon. Friend. I hope that, before the Bill completes its passage, more thought will be given to whether a similar approach to that on biometrics could be taken to clause 16.
	I want to comment briefly on the changes to deportation and other matters. The point has already been made that, whatever the legislation, if the Home Office does not process cases at a reasonable speed, it will not work. That has been a recurring theme of debates on several Bills, and the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) made the point earlier. I fully accept that, after 10 years of government, we must accept responsibility for the state of the Home Office and the delays. However, if the hon. Gentleman is trying to suggest that there was a golden era a few years back under a Conservative Government, he is wrong.
	My experience between 1992 and 1997 was that the Home Office was at least as shambolic in processing cases as it is nowindeed, it was probably worse. The problem has simply remained unsolved for a long time. It is important to get to grips with it; if the processing does not happen, the deportation clauses will not work. If legislation is passed but not implemented, and things that we say will happen do not, faith in the process will be lost. I have argued for some time that the Home Office should legislate rather less and do a hell of a lot more to ensure that the systems within it work.

William Cash: I shall be brief. I listened to the Minister's comments with interest. In a nutshell, he said, So far, so good, but we need to monitor the position carefully in future. The Bill does not go far enough. I have deep concerns about the rate and manner of immigration policies, and I have already said that the Human Rights Act 1998 represents an obstacle to our dealing not only with immigration but with asylum and deportation. We have reached the point at which, even when the courts say that a person is dangerous, the Human Rights Act will be invoked to claim that the person should remain in this country. We have created the most extraordinary, topsy-turvy, upside-down world. On the basis of my exchanges with previous Home Secretaries, I do not believe that the Government have understood, or been prepared to tackle, a situation as grave as this has become.
	I do not believe for a moment that the biometric system will function properly. It is driven by European directives. They have not been mentioned in our debates on the Bill, but the Minister knows that that is where it all comes from. Judging by the evidence that I have read recently, it will not work: it is another costly implementation of unnecessary European legislation.
	I am deeply worried about the proposals in clauses 31 and 32, which clearly prescribe exceptions, when
	removal of the foreign criminal...in pursuance of a deportation order would breach
	his convention rights, or rights under the Community treaties. I have to say that I have no sympathy for foreign criminals. I cannot think of a single conceivable reason why a person who is a foreign criminal should be able to avail himself of an escape from these provisions simply on account of a fatuous law that has come out of the European convention or European Community treaties. We have really got a completely upside-down world.
	I see that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Enfield, North (Joan Ryan) is in her place next to the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality. She knows that we in the European Scrutiny Committee remain deeply concerned and critical of her role and that of other Ministers in matters that impinge on this question. I do not intend to go further into them now, but I refer to the transfer of foreign prisoners and related issues.
	In conclusion, I have great sympathy with the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). On the question of the covering of faces, the Minister effectively sold his own pass, because he admitted that the rules were there to ensure that the people in question were not allowed to get away with it, but that in practice there was no way of being absolutely certain.

Liam Byrne: indicated dissent.

William Cash: The Minister shakes his head, but we will no doubt return to the matter at some future date.
	The bottom line is that the Bill does not go far enough and does not deal with the real problems on the ground. The intrusion of the Human Rights Act and European Community enactments should be covered by the sort of provisions set out in new clause 17 of the Regulatory Reform Bill. We should override the European Communities Act 1972 and the Human Rights Act, and we should require the judiciary to obey.

Tony Wright: I will be extremely brief. Many of us have thought for a long time that we should find a way to have a more sensible and informed discussion of what is potentially an extremely toxic issue. We are discussing this Bill against the background of a dramatic increase in population projected over the next generationa growth of about 7 million or more, of which the majority will come from migration. That is unprecedented.
	That is a huge task for a society to adjust to and digest, so the key is to ensure that we look at the issue in the round and take sensible decisions on border controls and migration policy generally, based on the best evidence about what is good for this country. The levels that we are talking about, and the components of them, may be extremely good or they may be extremely bador perhaps somewhere between the two, which I suspect is the case. What I am sure about is that we have to do better in finding the mechanism to enable usin government, in Parliament and among the publicto have better discussion of these matters than we have had before.
	I am pretty sure that when the Bill was announced, the Home Secretary told me that we were going to have an immigration commission to look at these issues in the round. I welcomed that, as I had argued for it for a long time. I tabled two early-day motions on the subject, and others supported them. The point was to put all the issues togetherwhat the economy needs in terms of skills, but also the effect on wage levels, public services, social cohesion and all the other things that bear on decisions on migration and border policy.
	I see that there is no such body in the Bill. Instead, we have what is called a migration advisory committee, which is to be a non-statutory, non-departmental public body that will offer advice, I am told, on the skills needed in particular sections of the economy. If that is the case, we are missing an opportunity to remedy the deficiencies that have been pointed out by the National Statistician, even in terms of the figures that we are dealing with. We cannot make good policy unless we have good population and migration figures, but we do not have them. Nor can we make sensible policy decisions unless we put all the issues about economic activity, skills shortages, wage levels, public services and social cohesion into the same pot and try to make sense of them. We could then make some informed decisions on that basis.
	We are to have a migration advisory committee, a migration impacts forum and a national statistics centre for demography, and we already have a commission on integration. I believe, however, that the time has come to put all those bodies together to form a serious commission that could advise the Government, and all of us, on all matters relating to immigration and population. I had hoped that such a provision would be in the Bill, because of what the Home Secretary had said. I still hope that in the course of the Bill's passage to the other place and back, we shall manage not to lose the opportunity to establish a body of that kind.

Stewart Hosie: I was slightly disappointed that no amendments were tabled to address the issue, which we identified on Second Reading, of the discrepancy between the powers to detain of immigration officers working in England and Wales compared with those of officers working in Scotland, who will not be able to detain those suspected of committing a non-immigration offence pending the arrival of a police officer.
	There was also a slightly less than satisfactory outcome to our brief exploration earlier today of clause 44, which relates to the seizure of nationality documents, in relation to Scotland. I mentioned during that debate that there was a corollary between the new powers being given to HMRC officers in Scotland and the similar new powers in the Bill for immigration officers. The Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995 was amended to ensure that only sheriffsnot sheriffs and justices of the peacecould issue and vary production orders. The provisions specified in some detail the procedures relating to the powers to remove, access and copy documents; again, there is a direct corollary with the power to seize nationality documents.
	The powers of arrest were specified, and, indeed, limited, to ensure that HMRC officersand likewise immigration officerswould not actually be police officers but would have certain powers. The Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 was also amended. Finally, the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 was amended to reference the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995, particularly in relation to the seizure of documents. That might have been a better approach to take to the powers given to immigration officers by the Bill; it might have been a more comprehensive way of dealing with these issues.
	However, none of those flaws is enough to persuade us to oppose the Bill tonight, and we will not do so. I am sure that the Minister will take on board in the correct manner the fact that I say that there is to be a change of Administration in Scotland soon, and that I am sure that he would like to seek an early meeting with the new Justice Minister at which he can explore fully how the criminal law in Scotland might be amended to provide the necessary safeguards, and to ensure that immigration officers working in Scotland have the same powers to protect their borders as those working in England and Wales.

James Clappison: The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) did not underestimate the amount of public disquiet on the subject of immigration. While I support some of the measures in the Bill, it certainly does not go far enough to address those concerns. It contains three potential areas of weakness, and I shall attempt to outline them in the limited time that I have left.
	First, on illegal immigration, I am worried that the proposals in the Bill, together with other proposals that the Government are bringing forward, will weaken the first and most effective line of defence, which is the overseas posts' power to grant people visas to come to this country. All the evidence shows that once someone is inside the country and staying here as an illegal migrant, it is very difficult to remove them.
	Secondly, the proposals on automatic deportation are in fact a retreat from what the Government proposed last year. The proposals in the Bill, which we went through in some detail in Committee, show remarkable indulgence towards repeat offenders. All the provisions are, in any case, subject to human rights legislation. Given the weakness of the Bill in dealing with repeat offenders, it will be important to examine how effectively the existing provisions on deportation are being used for people whose presence is not conducive to the public good, and whose deportation has been recommended by the courts.
	Finally, in relation to overall immigration, we need to consider the points-based system and the overall impact of migration. The Government should not just talk and set up bodies, but grasp the nettle and set a limit for the amount of net migration that they are prepared to accept into the country. That is now running at historically
	 It being Seven o'clock, Mr. Speaker  put forthwith the Question already proposed from the  C hair, pursuant to Order [5 February].
	 Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

EUROPEAN UNION DOCUMENTS

EU Development Policy

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 119(9) (European Standing Committees),
	That this House takes note of European Union Document No. 7124/07 and Addendum 1, Commission Communication, EU Code of Conduct on Division of Labour in Development Policy; and welcomes proposals to lower the transaction costs for developing countries and increase the effectiveness of providing aid. [Mr. Heppell.]
	 Question agreed to.

PETITION

Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (Derby)

Bob Laxton: I wish to present a petition, the lead signatory of which is Chris Williamson, the leader of Derby city council.
	The petition states:
	The Petition of the City of Derby declares that the proposal by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs to close its two Derby offices will have an unfavourable effect on both employees of the organisation and the city's economy as a whole.
	This decision will mean the loss of 400 jobs in Derby, will result in a downturn in our economy, and will have a detrimental effect on the environment.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House urge the Secretary of State for the Treasury to withdraw her proposal.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	 To lie upon the Table.

CARE OF ALZHEIMER'S PATIENTS

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. [Liz Blackman.]

Fabian Hamilton: For many Members, it is often constituents who highlight an issue by bringing it to our attention, either in an advice surgery, in correspondence or over the telephone. That was so in the case of Tony Dean, whose case I bring to the attention of the House this evening, as well as to the attention of my hon. Friend the Minister. Tony's wife, Avril, first came to see me in February last year, concerned about her husband's care at a time when he was visibly deteriorating day by day. It might help the House to understand Tony's case a little better if I give some background.
	Tony Dean was born in the working-class Chapeltown district of my constituency in February 1940. He was highly intelligent, attended school in Chapeltown, then went on to Leeds modern schoolnow known as Lawnswood high schooland went to Sunderland to train as a pharmacist before qualifying in 1962. In 1967, he married Avril and the couple had two children, now grown up and aged 37 and 35. In 1968, Tony set up his own pharmacy in the Beeston and Holbeck area of Leeds. It was a small local shop, which rapidly gained a good reputation and became an integral part of that modest suburb of south Leeds. Many of his former customers still ask after him and try to seek his advice, although he has not been there for a few years.
	Seven years ago, Tony was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. As a pharmacist, he knew what to expect and bore the news with typical stoicism. He and Avril had already guessed that something was wrong when, during the preceding two years, Tony had started suffering memory lossat first, small things such as forgetting how to lock the car door or where the airing cupboard was located in their home. After the formal diagnosis in 2000, Tony knew what to expect.
	Tony had always been a sporty and athletic person. A well-built and powerful man of 5 ft 10 in, he enjoyed cricket, golf and bowls as well as bridge and chess. However, one by one, he had to give up those pastimesand his workas the disease gained its grip on his mind. Although he tried to take each setback in his stride, accepting what the disease would mean, he fought against losing his driving licence by retaking his driving test, although eventually, sadly, he had to give up driving in early 2002. He was 62 years old.
	By the time he had begun to suffer from the excruciating pain of kidney stones during 2002, Tony became so frustrated that he could no longer express his pain or feelingsnor could he even urinate properly, or sometimes at alland he started to become violent and angry. Eventually, at the end of 2004, he underwent an operation for the kidney stones, but his family tell me that by the time he came home from hospital he was no longer the husband and father whom they knew and loved so much. He had, in their words, gone to the fairies.
	In March 2005 Avril decided to visit her daughter in Canada, but needed respite care for Tony, whom she was finding increasingly difficult to look after. Following two unsuccessful attempts to place him in private care homes, he was admitted to The Mount psychiatric hospital in Leeds for a month for his care needs to be assessed. By the time Avril returned from Canada, he had been admitted to Leeds general infirmary suffering from bruising and bleeding as a result of falls sustained at The Mount. By this time the disease had made him very aggressive, and although no physical problem could be found, he kept walking into other people as well as objects, doors and furniture.
	One month's assessment at The Mount soon became 15 months. An attempt to place Tony in an NHS continuing care home, Towngate House in Guiseley, in June last year failed after a few days, and he was back at The Mount. After being taken off 24-hour observation while Avril was away on holiday in August 2006, Tony became dehydrated and very seriously ill. He had suffered kidney damage and bruising to his head and eye. He was kept in Leeds general infirmary for three and a half weeks, but he was also suffering from an enlarged prostate, and by now was reduced to a vegetative state. He had stopped being able to walk, talk, feed himself or even drink without help. By this time he was no longer aggressive, so he was admitted to Towngate House again.
	Unhappy with the care that Tony was receiving compared with the care he had received at The Mount, I arranged a meeting for Avril with Michele Moran, deputy chief executive of Leeds Community and Mental Health Trust. Michele was very helpful back in November and promised to look into Avril's complaints about the way that Tony had been treated at Towngate House, as well as trying to find somewhere appropriate to give him the care that he needed.
	On 22 February this year, Tony moved to Southlands care home in the old Wetherby road in my constituency. Southlands is a privately run home that offers excellent standards of care, and Tony is now very well looked after. However, it is costing Avril 635 per week. She is receiving a contribution of 87 a week from the NHS, and also receives an attendance allowance of 325 a month as well as Tony's state pension, but it will not take very long for every penny that the couple have, as well as all their assets, to be used up.
	Avril is unhappy that Tony does not qualify for continuing care because he does not have enough medical need. After complaining to Leeds primary care trust, she was told by one of its officials that its hands were tied by Government policy. Yet when I went with Avril to meet representatives of the PCT in January, the official could not understand why I was there. The PCT agreed to bring in a qualified nurse from Halifax PCT to reassess Tony's care needs at Southlands. The nurse agreed that a higher level of care was needed and raised the band for payment to 133 a week, although I understand that that higher amount has not yet been received by Avril and that Leeds PCT is very unhappy with the award.
	Tony Dean is now comfortableas far as anyone can telland very well looked after, but at a massive cost. The family understands that the NHS could not possibly afford to pay the continuing care costs of every patient who suffers from Alzheimer's disease, but rightly feels that there should be equity of provision throughout the country. The High Court ruling of January 2006 in the case of Maureen Grogan found that the eligibility criteria for continuing care being used by the Bexley care trust were unlawful. That surely raises questions about the criteria being used by other health trusts and authorities. Given that many attempts were made during Tony Dean's 15-month stay at The Mount to find a private care home that would take him, and that no home at the time would give him a place, does not that show that he had such high dependency needs that only the NHS could give him the care that he needed?
	I am aware that a draft framework for continuing care is to be published soon, so will my hon. Friend the Minister tell me when he expects it to be available and what it might say? Surely, the distinction between health and social care is a false one when examining cases such as Tony Dean's. Can my hon. Friend give me, the Dean family and many thousands in their situation any hope that the continuing care needed for patients such as Tony will be provided at some future date? Dementia care is not simply social care. A man such as Tony Dean can no longer do anything for himself. He has forgotten how to swallow and he cannot turn over in bed, speak, walk, eat, drink or do anything else without help from another person. He needs 24-hour a day care just to stay alive.
	I am delighted that I have been able to hold this debate this evening and highlight the case of a delightful and wonderful man whose life has been destroyed by that terrible affliction and whose loving family has been torn apart by the disease. Their determination, especially his wife Avril's, has certainly ensured that Tony is now properly looked after, but I hope that it will also show what needs to be done to help many others in the same situation who continue to suffer.
	I thank Avril Dean and her family and friends, who have been so supportive. I also thank the Alzheimer's Society for its help in providing some of the information for tonight's debate. I should not forget, either, the wonderful staff at The Mount and the Leeds Community and Mental Health Trust and, of course, Southlands care home where Kate looks after Tony so lovingly.
	Finally, I hope that my hon. Friend can offer hope to thousands of Alzheimer's patients, both current and future, that they will receive equitable treatment and care wherever they may live in England and that the postcode lottery becomes a thing of the past.

Ivan Lewis: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Mr. Hamilton) on securing this Adjournment debate.
	Nobody in the House, or outside, can fully understand the impact of Alzheimer's on individuals, their family and friends unless they have experienced it personally. My hon. Friend spoke movingly of the life of Tony Dean and the impact of the condition on him, as well as the consequences for his wife and carer, Avril, and the wider family.
	It is difficult and challenging to live with a husband or wife, mother or father after seeing them enjoy a full lifeparticipating actively in their local community, holding down an important job, being a parent or spouseonly for it to be suddenly shattered by that horrendous condition. It is indeed traumatic. For many people, it can be the first time in their life when they require significant input either from the national health service or from the social care system.
	Continuing care has long been a difficult issue. Decisions are made locally by a combination of assessment involving primary care trusts and local authorities. As a consequence of cases such as that of Mr. Dean, of court rulingsmy hon. Friend referred to oneand of ombudsman's investigations, the Government acknowledge that there is an authentic and genuine issue that has to be addressed. Until now, we have not been able to micro-manage decisions made on a locality by locality basis. Indeed, it would not have been appropriate to do so; nor will it be in the future.
	However, we acknowledge the need for a national framework to provide clear guidance about access to and eligibility for continuing care funding. I have made it clear that, as a result of court judgments and ombudsman's rulings, it is important that we get the guidance right, which is why it has taken some time to prepare. It is my intention to publish it in June. We believe that it will lead to a more equitable and a fairer system.
	The difficult but honest message is that people will always fall on either side of the line, wherever that line is drawn. What is important is that the new system takes account of the fact that we live in a changing society. One of the challenges for the national health service and the social care system is the demographic realities that we now face. People in our society are living longer, which is good news, but in doing so they are developing more complex and challenging conditions such as Alzheimer's and dementiaconditions that the current system was not set up to address or cope with. That is why we need to issue this new guidance. It will influence the decisions that are made in every local health economy and social care system throughout the country, and it will, we hope, lead to greater equity.
	My hon. Friend raises the question of the dividing line between social care and health care. That is incredibly difficult to address because, again, there is a line, so there will always be people who, following assessment, fall on one side of it rather than the other. The national health service has through history been free at the point of need irrespective of the ability to pay, funded through general taxation, and that will always be the position as long as this Government remain in power. On the other hand, social care has always been a means-tested system. There has always been a requirement, linked to income and capital, for people to make a contribution. That is not an invention of recent years; it has always been the nature of the social care system.
	I say to my hon. Friend that any political party that suggests to Tony and Avril, and thousands of other people up and down the country, that the concept of free care is sustainable is not telling them the truth. The Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Romsey (Sandra Gidley), recently said that she regretted the fact that in her party's manifesto for the previous general election it had misled people into believing that free care was a credible option. She admitted that in the Chamber, much to everybody's surprise. The questionand challengefor our society and Government is: what is fair and sustainable under this new demographic reality?

Fabian Hamilton: Does my hon. Friend not agree that in Scotland much more continuing care is given free of charge, and that therefore according to his own logic that is unsustainable in the future and at some stage the Scots will have to charge for that continuing care?

Ivan Lewis: Local authorities in Scotland are already saying that it is difficult to believe that the policy of free personal care will be sustainable. Devolution means that Scotland has the right to make that choice, within the restraints of the resources available to it. However, we must recognise that there is a difference between continuing care, social care and personal care, and we must not mix them up. Free personal care is in my view neither sustainable nor necessarily fair, because it bears no relation to the relative ability to pay of the people making a contribution.
	We must address the status quo. We already recognise that the status quo in continuing care is not acceptable, which is why we intend to issue guidancein June, we hope. We also recognise that the changing demographics mean that we need a new consensus for a new settlement in terms of social care as well. That will involve looking at the respective future responsibilities and contributions of the state, the Government or the taxpayer, and of the family and the individual using the services.
	We need a new consensus. A coalition of charities has just come together, which has stimulated a national debate that has just begun. There will also be a series of conferences throughout the country, so we will be having an honest dialogue with the people of England on what is sustainable and fair. Given the realities that we now face of people living longer and of an increasing number of challenging conditions, where does responsibility properly lie, both financial and behavioural? As a consequence of conditions such as Alzheimer's and dementia, more and more people define themselves, and are defined as, carers in our society, and that process will continue. That is why the Chancellor of the Exchequer and I launched not long ago a consultation on the nature of the support that we need to offer carers in future. That consultation process will take place over the next few months, and we intend to publish a new national carers strategy in due course. We have announced some funding for emergency respite care, an emergency helpline and an expert carers programme. Since 1999, every local authority has had an annual grant to spend specifically on supporting carers.
	I realise that, now that Mr. Dean is in care, some of those developments are in a sense less relevant in the case of Mrs. Dean. However, we should remember that, as her husband developed the condition and deteriorated, some of her experiences have perhaps not been as satisfactory as they should have been. The level of support available to her as a carer has perhaps not always been of the highest quality and standard. The system is sometimes incredibly difficult for people to navigate, which is why the Government believe that more control and power over deciding the level and nature of care that people with Alzheimer's and other such conditions should receive should be in the hands of the family and the user, and that less should be in the hands of organisations. The manifestation of that is individual budgets and direct payments, and a greater level of control for those who use such services and their family members, with professionals playing quite a different role.
	The Government have introduced many changes that have represented progress. Since October 2001, there has been NHS-funded nursing care in all settings, substantial investment in intermediate care, and a 12-week property disregard of the means test for residential accommodation when a person moves permanently into a care home. There is also the deferred payments scheme, whereby people can delay selling their homes in order to meet care costs, and the raising of capital limits below which individuals receive financial assistance toward their care.
	Therefore, the Government have done a number of things, but there is still a lot for us to do. On the specific issues that concern Avril and Tony Dean, I hope that the new guidance on continuing care, which is due in June, will make a difference to them and to many others whose presenting problem is, in a sense, their mental health need because of Alzheimer's or dementia. Having reviewed this issue, I am not sure that the system that was in place historically took sufficient account of that reality and of the consequences of such conditions in the care required.
	Alongside the new guidance on continuing care, we need a new consensus for a new settlement that defines in terms of personal and social care the respective responsibilities of the state, the citizen and the family. The situation today is challenging, given the changes that are taking place, but as Wanless said in his report of not that long ago, we have to address this issue. Over the next 20 to 25 years, that will be a growing challenge facing our society.
	Members in all parts of the HouseI say that slightly tongue in cheek, looking at the empty Opposition Benches during this incredibly important debatehave accepted that the status quo on pension provision is not appropriate to the changing society that we live in. The balance of people who will be economically productive as against those who will be retired is changing rapidly. The same principles apply to the way that we fund and provide care as people get older. It was possible, in the new framework for pensions, to achieve significant consensus in difficult circumstances. This issue is not just a challenge for one Government, but for society. Let us hope that we can engage in a constructive, honest and authentic dialogue with the people of this country about what a sustainable and fair system will look like in the future.
	There are no easy solutions. Wanless sought to bring disability benefits into the equation, and that is a contentious and difficult addition to the subject of the reform of social care. The presentation of the issue as a choice between a means-tested system or free personal care is, in some ways, disingenuous. Much of the way in which the system now works would need to be addressed to achieve system-wide reform that would cope with the realities of the society that we live in now and in which we will live in future.
	The Government will not shirk the challenge. There are no easy options and there will be hard choices to make, but we must not seek to impose a new social care system on people. We must first have a serious discussion with people about their expectations, their rights and their responsibilities. As part of that dialogue, we need to identify the options and alternatives available to us. As I have said, some excellent work has been done by Derek Wanless, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the King's Fund on the dilemmas and choices that society and Government face in reordering the social care system.
	Alongside financial responsibility, we need to consider how to move from a system in which local authorities and the statutory agencies provide services to people, to one in which people are empowered to take a greater level of control over the care that they want for themselves and their families. There is nothing more intimate and personal than needing personal care, often for the first time in our lives. However difficult and challenging someone's condition, the family and the individual have the right to maintain maximum control, especially as it often feels as if their lives are spiralling out of control. We need a new consensus on a new funding settlement, but we also need a completely different way of offering and providing social care in the future.
	I say to Tony and Avril Dean that we are on their side. The system sometimes feels bureaucratic, unfair and unjust. We will do our best to address that, although some of the issues are not easy to resolve. When individuals are going through the difficulties that that family face, it must be even more difficult if they feel that the system is not on their side. My job is to try to put some of that right, and to lead a direction of travel for some of those issues in the future, so that the country is in a fit state to face up to the realities of changing demographics and rising public expectations.
	There was a time when people who were older, or who were dependent or had physical disabilities, were consigned to institutions. Such people will not tolerate that any more and that is good news, as it is a sign of advances in society. More and more people want to remain living in their homes, with maximum autonomy for as long as possible. That asks new questions of the system, and we must be ready to face those challenges.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Seven o'clock.